The quality of quantitation in chromatography Part II. Optimizing the quantitative analysis

An information theoretical derivation of the optimal separation expressed in required column length of chromatographical peaks is given. The criterion is the precision of the estimation of the peak intensities. Fully separated peaks happened to be not optimal; a much lower resolution corresponding with a small columnlength is to be preferred. Perhaps more important is the obtained strong reduction of the analysis time than gain in precision to allow very fast chromatography usable for instance process control. The not completely resolved peaks require special signal processing software using as much preinformation about signal shape and retention time as possible.