Chromatography Forum

Dear Friends,

From time to time I need to do some teaching on chromatography related matters. I would like to ask if any of you know about a program to simulate peaks with different caracteristics (width, symmetry, tailing, overlap, etc). Where could I get it?, is it possible to buy it?

Thanks for your help.

josebenjamin

I got some spreadsheets that do such stuff. Have not used them in a while, and need to find them, but I am quite willing to send them to you. It is actually very easy to do. The last time I was using it, I told my colleagues that we can throw away all these chromatographs, because I can do any chromatogram they would like in my spreadsheet.

Could you post the spreadsheets here? They sound like fun and I would like to try and play with them myself.

There also was an article in LC.GC on this: V.R. Meyer, LC.GC Int, 7 (#10), 590 (1994). (Related: V.R. Meyer, T. Welsh, LC.GC Int, 9 (#10), 670 (1996))

Dear Uwe,

Please send me the spreadsheets (or other info you may have) to jbehcav@aol.com .

Thanks

josebenjamin

Hi all,

From memory, I seem to recall a HPLC Simulator software being available from a chromatography supplier. I've used it once before and the interface graphics reminds me of a DOS program. Try talking to the people at Phenomenex (I'm in no way associated with Phenomenex). This company did put out a HPLC tutorial program some years ago based on the Asymmetrix Toolbook authoring program. Good luck.

Uwe, your spreadsheet sounds interesting. Could you please send me a copy on: v.wong@uws.edu.au? Thanks in advance.

Cheers.

I just looked at the one referenced above; it's very nice!

I'll add that link to the FAQ section.

I've just been playing about with the simulator shown in the link. It does look very good...

A few questions/queries/comments about it...

1) I presume the units are in seconds for retention?
2) What is the width measured in - when I apply seconds to this also from a real chrom it looks totally skewed
3) Also when I apply the f symmetry factor from measured real values, again it totally skews the simulation - with the fact that it does not look like the real data....

I must be doing something wrong... any ideas anayone?

Here is a link to the chromatogtraphy simulator instructions.
http://www.qualitypharmaservices.co.uk/ ... struct.pdf

I've downloaded the instructions but it does not list what units you are supposed to use... I'm presuming seconds for both retention time and peak width measurements?

Plus my simulation does not look anything like my real-life chromatogram... shall I post?

Rob,
You are correct that the retention times are in seconds. I do not think that the peak widths are in seconds though. A quick look at my chromatograms show that the peak widths are actually the width in seconds divided by 10. Peak widths in the one to two range look like cap GC peaks and widths in the 5 to 10 range look like isocratic LC peaks. I hope that this helps.

I'll volunteer the "chrom fake" spreadsheet that I wrote to generate chromatograms for courses. It's ugly, but it works. You can select isocratic or gradient, make peaks tail, and add noise or drift to your heart's content. Output (with some judicious blurring in PaintShop Pro) looks like this:



or this:



E-mail me privately for a copy.