Determination of the component number in overlapping multicomponent chromatogram using wavelet transform

Component number in overlapping multicomponent chromatogram was determined by a novel method-wavelet transform. Because of the characteristic of the d ouble localization in time and frequency domain, the wavelet transform can decompose an overlapping chromatogram into contributions of different frequ ency. Among these contributions, there will be contributions which will rep resent the resolved chromatographic signals because their frequency is high er than the overlapping signal and lower than the high frequency noise. The refore, the component number of an overlapping chromatogram can be determin ed by the number of peaks in the resolved chromatogram. Simulated data sets and a seriously overlapping 5-component chromatogram were investigated by the method. It was proved that the wavelet transform is a very easy and con venient method for detecting the component number in overlapping multicompo nent chromatograms. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.