A chromatogram decomposition method and its associated calibration for quantitative analysis

We present a new chromatogram decomposition method for Gas Chromatography (GC) which represents a chromatogram as a sum of template functions inspired by the analytic solution of mass balance equation. The proposed method starts by approximating GC response of a single gas by these template functions. Consequently, it utilizes the temporal translation and dilation of this approximate response to approximate GC responses of other gases of interest. The results are demonstrated on lab data using calibration bottles containing mixtures of C1-C5. Correlation of the amplitudes of the decomposed responses and injected concentrations indicates linear calibration curves are sufficient to estimate C1-C5 concentrations. The performance of the method is demonstrated by a ratio test where a calibration bottle with C1 concentration 300 times larger than C2 and C3 concentrations is injected into GC. •Expressing response of a GC system to a single gas using functions inspired by the analytic solution of a mass balance equation.•Approximating responses of a GC system to other gases as an affine transformed version of response of the single gas.•Calibration and subsequent quantitative analysis with an application for sensitivity analysis.