Mathematical structure of chromatographic optimization based on information theory: I. Effect of mobile phase composition on precision

Summary The influence of mobile phase composition X on the precision of liquid-chromatographic analysis is interpreted in terms of the derivate of the mutual information for peak j with respect to X, d_j/dX. The sign and magnitude of d_j/dX depend on the operational conditions of X or on the details of chromatograms (e.g., resolutions R_s), but d_j/dX always indicates the direction of X toward more information _j. The sensitivity function s_j(=1/(k_j+1)) is examined on the basis of information theory. Optimization is formulated as a nonlinear programming problem.