Chemometric Classification

Chemometric classification of sample types using gas chromatography and chemometric analysis provide confirmation of brands, quality and origin.

Intertek experts develop and apply analytical systems which use complex chromatographic patterns and statistical analyses to classify sample types. Such analysis systems provide confirmation of brand, or quality, or origin of material.

Industrial and consumer product samples can be classified by geographic source, manufacturer, variety and more. Types of samples testing for chemometric classification include textiles, fragrances, wine, fruit and more.

Chemometric Analysis Systems:  

Analysis systems generally comprise of a means to transfer a representative part of the sample into the analysis system. Separation and analysis of the distinguishing characteristic features which can be used to differentiate samples from different (known) classes.  These (training) samples allow one to build a chemometric model that can be used to automatically assign unknown samples to the different classes.

The chemometric methods used to elucidate the distinguishing characteristics and provide analysis.  These include principle component analysis (PCA), K nearest neighbours (KNN) and SIMCA.  The image shows an example SIMCA classification plot which differentiated 7 types of fibre on the basis of headspace-GC data.

The analysis systems used is based on gas chromatography or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, although the chemometric approaches can equally be used with analytical data from other sources such as NMR or FTIR spectroscopy.

Extensive development work is required and the complexity of the final analytical procedure and potentially, capital investment in equipment, would normally mean such projects would be suitable only for ongoing routine analyses of significant volume.

Contact us to see how Intertek can help your organization with Chemometric Classification.