Abstract
An empirical equation has been developed to evaluate chromatographic separation efficiency. This equation can be expressed as the product of a “separation” term, a “capacity” term and an “alignment between peaks” term. It can be shown that this equation is insensitive to other column or separation parameters. Its sensitivity depends only upon the resolution between peaks. This in turn allows the linking of the equation with any column or separation parameter during the optimization process as a response function. The utility of this equation has been extensively tested with the aid of computer-simulated overlapping peaks. This method is applicable to any separation technique that is based upon separation of compounds due to differences in partitioning between the stationary and mobile phases (column chromatography, HPLC, counter-current distribution, etc.). This equation can also be used to evaluate the quantity of each separated or overlapped compound giving a true picture of separation efficiency.