T. Schofield

A new method to optimize liquid chromatography (LC) methods using a Quality by Design (QbD) approach is presented. This method is based on the use of design of experiments (DOE) and independent component analysis (ICA) to accurately estimate the modeled responses (that is, the retention times at the beginning, the apex, and the end) of each peak, even for coeluted peaks. This method was applied to the optimization of the separation of nine compounds in a mixture, yielding the design space and the demonstration of robustness of the method.