Data Acquisition and Processing

The acquisition and processing of data from chiral separations involves exactly the same type of equipment as that used in general GC analysis. The output from the detector is passed to a scaling amplifier that provides an output suitable for the digitizing range of the analog to digital converter. The digitized signal is then acquired by the computer and stored on disc. At the same time, some on-the-fly processing usually takes place. The output is continually printed out, thus providing a chromatogram in real time. In addition the peak maximum is usually identified by a simple differentiating routine and the retention time printed out at the peak maximum peak maximum. At the end of the analysis the peak areas are measured, response factors applied and a quantitative analytical report printed out. This represents the basic data processing package but other calculations and reports can be generated by different software. Often the beginning and end of the integration of each peak area is marked on the chart, corrected retention times, capacity ratios and sometimes separation ratios are also calculated and given in the report. Banks of retention data may be available on disk together with a simple search routine to identify and label each solute. Different types of baseline correction may also be available and specific types selected to suit the particular chromatographic conditions. Once the detector output data is acquired and stored on disk, any chromatographic parameter can be calculated and reported, providing the necessary software is available or can be written by the user.