An Integrated Wipe Sample Transport/Autosampler to Maximize Throughput for a Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART)/Orthogonal Acceleration, Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (oa-TOFMS)

A wipe sample transport was designed and built to meet two objectives: to simplify collection, storage, and transport of cotton swab wipe samples and to provide a sample train of 72 wipe samples nearly ready for analysis when the swabs reach the laboratory. The cotton swabs are mounted on an Al rod that is the sample support for an autosampler used to perform direct analysis in real time (DART 1 1DART is a registered trademark of JEOL USA, Inc. 1DART is a registered trademark of JEOL USA, Inc, Peabody, MA. )/orthogonal acceleration, time-of-flight mass spectrometry (oa-TOFMS) analyses. The goal is for one analyst to analyze 1000 wipe samples mounted on 14 Al rods in one 8-h shift.