A chromatographic objective function to characterise chromatograms with unknown compounds or without standards...

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Chromatography

Background:

• Analyzing complex mixtures in liquid chromatography is challenging, especially without prior knowledge of sample composition.
• Computer-based methods optimize chromatographic resolution, but existing objective functions require standard information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel chromatographic objective function (COF) for assessing resolution in samples with unknown compounds.
• To enable accurate peak detection and global resolution measurement without relying on chemical standards.

Main Methods:

• A new COF was developed based on the automatic measurement of chromatographic peak prominences.
• The method was validated using artificial peaks, simulated chromatograms, and real-world samples.

Main Results:

• The proposed COF effectively indicates the number of perceptible peaks and global resolution.
• It demonstrated satisfactory performance regarding the peak purity criterion.
• The approach was successfully applied to drug mixtures with impurities and herbal extracts.

Conclusions:

• A novel, standard-independent COF based on peak prominence is presented.
• This method enhances the analysis of complex samples in liquid chromatography, including those with unknown components.