reconstructed ion chromatogram

reconstructed ion chromatogram

A normal mass spectrometric data set consisting of full mass spectra recorded sequentially in time as a sample is passed to the ion source, either from a direct-insertion probe or from a chromatograph (e.g., GC/MS). The total ion current trace is the sum of ion abundances in each mass spectrum plotted vs time.
Each spectrum contains a pattern of molecular ions and fragment ions, which can be specified, and data plotted of scan-by-scan abundance of specific ions vs time—the so-called reconstructed ion chromatogram (RIC). The RIC can be used to identify all ions belonging in a single mass spectrum, based on their coincident peaks in time, while discriminating against background ions, and can be used to screen a GC/MS run for related classes of compounds by re-constructing ion chromatograms for common structurally specific ions.