Automated software-controlled system directly analyzes thin-layer chromatography (TLC) plates and a full range of other planar surfaces by mass spectrometry. The Plate Express provides a simple, automated, software-clicked means of visually pinpointing and extracting compounds from a range of TLC plate formats into Advion’s expression compact mass spectrometer (CMS). The combined technique is known as TLC/CMS. Synthetic organic, natural product and peptide chemists can quickly and confidently identify analytes in complex mixtures without additional sample preparation utilizing TLC/CMS. Advion