IBO has selected Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Orbitrap Fusion MS as the product of the show for this year’s ASMS annual meeting. The new model features an all-new configuration that incorporates a quadrupole front end along with Thermo’s proven linear ion trap and Orbitrap mass analyzers. The improved system offers a resolving power of better than 450,000 and provides a wide variety of fragmentation techniques. The Orbitrap Fusion will be priced between $700,000 and $800,000, depending on options, while pricing for the Orbitrap Elite will be lowered.

The new system, which could be described as a quadrupole–ion trap–orbitrap LC/MS, is more simply referred to as a “Tribrid” by the company. The up-front quadrupole for precursor ion selection is followed by a c-trap that functions as a T-intersection for guiding ion packets between the dual-pressure linear ion trap and Orbitrap mass analyzers. The ion trap provides MSn scan rates of up to 20 Hz and is capable of high energy collision dissociation, collision induced dissociation and electron transfer dissociation fragmentation techniques.

The all-new mass analyzer configuration will undoubtedly allow leading researchers to conduct a wide variety of experiments in ways that were not previously possible. However, it is the performance improvement, primarily in the latest generation of Thermo’s Orbitrap mass analyzer technology, that is likely to be the bigger draw for most scientists.