Validation of a chromatography data analysis software

The performance of chromatography data analysis software packages is of car dinal importance when the precision and the accuracy of a chromatographic s ystem are evaluated. Users cannot rely on a procedure generating chromatogr aphic data of known accuracy. Holistic approaches cannot always be entirely trusted. We propose a new method consisting in validating a data analysis package against computer generated chromatograms of exactly known character istics by feeding these chromatograms into the vendor supplied software and comparing the results supplied by the software and the exact answers. We s imulated symmetrical and tailing chromatograms and processed these signals with the Agilent Technologies (formerly Hewlett-Packard) ChemStation softwa re. The noise profile (i.e. the power spectrum of the baseline) was determi ned for a HPLC UV detector Frier to the calculations, and chromatograms of different signal-to-noise ratios were used for the analysis. For every chro matogram, we simulated 25 replicates with identical signal-to-noise ratios but different noise sequences. In this manner, both the random and the syst ematic errors of the retention data and peak shape characteristics can be e valuated. When analyzing tailing peaks, we simulated the effects of extra-c olumn band broadening and those of column overload. Our calculations show t hat the general performance of the data analysis system studied is excellen t. The contribution of the random error originating from the data analysis procedure is in most cases negligible compared to the repeatability of the chromatographic measurement itself. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BN. All right s reserved.