Independent Components Analysis of the Overlapping Voltammetric Signals

This paper introduces the Independent Components Analysis (ICA) to voltammetry and extends possibility of the qualitative and quantitative analysis of binary mixtures of similar oxidation/reduction potentials. It was demonstrated that even in the case of distance between peaks potentials equal to 10 mV, determinations may be realized according to typical validation criteria. The methodology was presented using the simulated data and capabilities and limitations of the method were described. Further, the usefulness of ICA was presented for voltammograms registered during simultaneous determination of copper and antimony, and thallium and indium. The results of high practical importance for chemical analysis were achieved and documented. In the quantitative analysis a property was extensively used, that ICA is an unsupervised method.