Chromatographic Enhancement Software - Component Detection for GC/MS and LC/MS
Introduction
A high chemical background or the continuous introduction of a reference compound can make it difficult to locate and identify trace components in a total ion current chromatogram in a GC/MS or LC/MS experiment. The Shrader System for Windows™ software1 available with the JEOL GCmate, LCmate, and RSVP mass spectrometers provides a solution to this problem based on the Component Detection Algorithm (CODA), developed by Windig et. al.2 The CODA algorithm identifies significant peaks by comparing a smoothed, mean-subtracted reconstructed ion chromatogram (RIC) with the original RIC.
Figure 1 shows the data processing screen when CODA is applied to a GC/MS chromatogram where a high chemical background is present. Note the improvement in signal-to-noise for the CODA-enhanced chromatogram. This enhancement can be dramatic and can often reveal "hidden" features in a chromatogram (see Figure 4).