Chemometrics for Improved Limits of Detection and Dynamic Range in Flow Injection Analysis with Spectrometric Detection

Oral Presentation

Prepared by J. Wood, I. Lähdesmäki
FIAlab Instruments Inc., 2151 N. Northlake Way, Suite 100, Seattle, WA, 98103, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 206-258-2290


ABSTRACT

Diode array and CCD array spectrometers have been commercially available for decades. They have received widespread use in liquid chromatography but only a handful of vendors are employing them for Flow Injection Analysis (FIA). FIAlab Instruments Inc. has been investigating novel applications of multivariate chemometric techniques that leverage the broad spectra collected by array spectrometers with the goal of improving the figures of merit relative to those obtained by instruments that are capable of collecting signals at only one or a few wavelengths. By applying these multivariate chemometric techniques to the broad absorbance spectra collected by FIAlab’s FIA instruments, this study demonstrates dramatic improvements in both the limits of detection and dynamic range across many common environmental assays. This study also demonstrates the implementation of automated chemometric techniques into FIAlab’s analysis software, FIAsoft, and across its line of FIA instrumentation. Various aspects of the investigation, such as relevant differences between spectrometric and single wavelength detection, an overview of the chemometric techniques employed, and key results from this study will be presented.