Topino: A Graphical Tool for Quantitative Assessment of Molecular Stream Separations

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Chemical Engineering
• Data Visualization

Background:

• Molecular-stream separation (MSS) involves separating multicomponent mixtures into individual streams.
• Quantitative evaluation of MSS data has been challenging due to its multidimensional nature.
• Existing methods lack reproducibility and uniformity in data presentation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the bottleneck in quantitative evaluation of MSS data.
• To introduce a novel method for MSS data dimensionality reduction.
• To present a user-friendly software tool for analyzing MSS data.

Main Methods:

• Developed a dimensionality reduction technique by converting MSS data to a polar coordinate system.
• Introduced the 'angulagram' a 2D plot of integrated intensity versus angle.
• Created the open-source software Topino for automated angulagram generation and analysis.

Main Results:

• The angulagram simplifies visual assessment and enables determination of stream width, linearity, and deflection.
• Topino software processes MSS images in under 2 minutes with a user-friendly interface.
• Software robustness confirmed through multi-user testing, demonstrating reliable results.

Conclusions:

• Topino software effectively removes the analytical bottleneck in molecular-stream separation.
• The angulagram provides a standardized and reproducible method for MSS data analysis.
• Topino is an indispensable tool for researchers and practitioners in MSS.