How many peaks are we usually interested in?

[AICMM]

Interesting topic came up in a recent discussion. How many GC users are looking at 5 peaks or less? For example, how many of us are looking for a few key analytes in some other matrix? For example, CO and CO2 in ethylene.

Put the other way, how many GC users are looking for substantially more peaks or patterns like all the hydrocarbons in gasoline or a PCB pattern?

Best regards.

[HbJ]

Depends on my application

When determining water with GC it's just that peak, when doing analysis of hydrocarbon products I look at all the peaks (well, their total area and about 10 representative peaks).

Between that I have fingerprinting of regions and counting of peaks (analyte must contain n peaks; not more, not less).

But generally speaking about 20 peaks are of interest to me (thanks to my nightmarish matrices).