RESOLUTION OF PARTIALLY OVERLAPPED SIGNALS BY FOURIER-ANALYSIS - APPLICATION TO DIFFERENTIAL-PULSE POLAROGRAPHIC RESPONSES

An analysis of the first harmonic components of the sequence resulting from a suitable deconvolution operation on a response composed of sin gle partially overlapped signals allows the resolution of the over-all response into the individual signals, Ideally, it is possible to redu ce the original response to single impulses with suitable height and l ocation. If the number, n, of single signals is known, the first n - 1 harmonic components of the spectrum of the deconvoluted response, plu s the continuous term, need only be computed, On the other hand, if th e over-all response includes an unknown number of single signals, a me thod is suggested that requires the calculation of only a few harmonic components in order to build up a suitable form of the whole spectrum of the deconvoluted signal, The effectiveness of the proposed procedu res, which are suitable for the treatment of responses from different analytical techniques, was tested on simulated responses, both in the absence and presence of noise, and on experimental data, viz,, differe ntial-pulse polarographic responses recorded on solutions containing t wo metals that were reduced at similar potentials.