Resolution of LC/1H NMR data applied to a three‐component mixture of polyaromatic hydrocarbons

A three‐component mixture of naphthalene, anthracene and pyrene with the middle peak embedded was recorded using LC/1H NMR. Two case‐studies, one with tailing peaks and one without, were analysed. A procedure was developed involving apodization, Fourier transformation, phasing and baseline correction of raw data, preprocessing by frequency shift and peak shape correction, variable selection, determination of key variables, eigenvalue plots to determine the number and position of components, and finally resolution using factor analysis.