Metrohm 790 Personal IC - Manual (Page 109)

4 Operation
790 Personal IC
100
4.4.5 Calibration and quantification
General information
The aim of any chromatographic analysis is to answer the question
"What components are present in the sample and what are their con-
centrations?". Two procedures are used to achieve this goal: the first
step is called calibration, the second step includes quantification.
Calibration has two aims: to get retention characteristics for all com-
ponents of interest (these data are stored in the component table) and
to establish a relation between injected amounts and corresponding in-
strumental responses for all components of interest (stored in the con-
centration table). Calibration is performed by running one or several
chromatograms of samples with known composition and known con-
centration of components (standards). For each calibrated component
a calibration curve is constructed as a result.
With the 790 Personal IC three different procedures can be used for the
construction of the calibration curve. By far the most important method
for ion chromatography is the external standard calibration (abso-
lute calibration) that is described in detail in this section. The other
methods of internal standard calibration (relative calibration) and
tabulated calibration (relative gradient factor, a modified method for
external standard calibration) are of lesser importance and are not de-
scribed in detail here (for details please refer to on-line help).
Identification is a procedure that enables to decide what peaks on the
chromatogram correspond to what components. The identification is
performed based on the Component table created for calibration.
Quantification is a calculation procedure that determines components
concentrations, based on instrumental response (peak height or area),
using the calibration curves obtained earlier for each component.