Patent ID: 8480110

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a chromatography module; an ion-mobility module; a mass-spectrometry Module; and a control unit in communication with the modules, the control unit comprising a processor and a memory for storing a plurality of instructions which, when executed by the processor, causes execution of a method comprising: obtaining noisy raw data from a sample, the data comprising a set of three-dimensional data elements each associating an ion-count intensity with a retention-time dimension, an ion-mobility dimension, and a mass-to-charge-ratio dimension, wherein the noise is associated with ion-peak artifacts; convolving the three-dimensional data elements with an artifact-reducing filter, the filter associated with a three-dimensional matrix, thereby obtaining a convolved set of data elements having reduced ion-peak artifacts; and locating, in the retention-time, ion mobility, and mass-to-charge-ratio dimensions, one or more ion peaks of the convolved three-dimensional data elements.