Effects of microscans on the results of orbitrap mass spectrometry analysis of natural organic matter

This study experimentally confirms that averaging individual spectral transients (microscans) is not equivalent to averaging scans in the enhanced FT algorithm of data acquisition within the orbitrap performance. The effect of microscans on the absolute noise level is studied; signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and results of qualitative molecular analysis of natural organic matter (NOM) were obtained. Our studies have shown significant differences in the structure of obtained spectra and especially in the intensity and appearance of noise signals. Increasing the number of microscans leads to an increase in SNR, which is especially important for systems with a large content of low-intensity analytical peaks like NOM. The influence is significant and must be considered both during in-laboratory measurements for various samples and when comparing results across different laboratories.