Comprehensive Online Multidimensional Frequency Transform Separations (COMForTS) is a new analytical method that accelerates peak production by the correlation of analyte retention time with velocity where these data are derived from time-dependant frequency transformation of pulsed analyte signals.

Utilising a makeshift COMForTS instrument consisting of a two-dimensional capillary liquid chromatography system with arrayed on-column CCD-based ultra-violet absorbance detection, multiple injections of a multi-component solution were made such that the separations achieved from one injection severely overlapped those of adjacent injections (Figure 1a). Aggregation of multiple detector signals provided virtual analyte pulses and conventional time-time chromatograms were obtained by translation of the (Fourier-related) Radon transform of the resulting signals. In all cases, all analytes were resolved regardless of extensive wrap-around (Figure 1b). Previously reported interferences were either eliminated or greatly reduced.

The nature of COMForTS dictates that virtual peak production is always some higher multiple of physical peak production. This early work has demonstrated that COMForTS increases peak production by at least an order of magnitude and is equally applicable to separations in three or more dimensions where effective peak production increases exponentially with dimensionality.

We also discuss physical and computational requirements of COMForTS, potential applications and further improvement through evolved sophistication in signals processing methods.