OpenChrom

OpenChrom is an open source software for chromatography, spectrometry and spectroscopy. Data from different systems can be imported and analyzed, hence it’s a vendor independent software. Moreover, it runs under Windows, macOS and Linux. So the user has the choice to work wherever he wants, independent of the system. Originally, the intention was to create a ChemStation alternative. Meanwhile, it has become much more. Generally, it supports to handle GC/MS, GC/FID, HPLC-UV/VIS, FTIR, PCR and NMR data. Originally, OpenChrom was designed to analyze data from analytical pyrolysis, called Py-GC/MS. Thus, it has a strong focus on chromatography and nominal mass spectrometry. In the course of time, additional requirements have been added. More features are already in the pipeline. Its strength is to handle GC/MS and GC/FID measurements. Methods for peak detection, integration, identification, quantitation and reporting are supported. Using internal (ISTD) and external standards (ESTD) for quantitation purposes is supported as well. Additional filter help to optimize the measurements and classifier calculate key values of the chromatographic data and help to point out problems like shifted retention times or degraded columns. Did you know that it is easy to detect and identify peaks in a GC/MS file and to transfer these peaks to its corresponding GC/FID measurement for quantitation purposes. In summary, the modularity of OpenChrom allows to recombine the contained functionality for many different purposes. Both working in target screening (TS) and non-target screening (NTS) mode is possible. Therefore, the platform can be utilized for quality control purposes or for the analysis of chromatographic fingerprints.

A typical workflow consists of the following steps:

• Load chromatogram [MSD]
• Filter and optimize the data (optionally)
• Detect and integrate peaks
• Identify peaks (NIST-DB, user specific databases)
• Transfer peaks to chromatogram [FID]
• Set internal standard(s)
• Quantify peaks
• Report results

All these steps can be applied manually. It’s recommended to run the analysis of the data a few times by hand. But OpenChrom also supports process methods and batch processes. The aforementioned steps can be automated and customized in a very flexible way.

Extensions can be easily added. Lablicate GmbH offers a commercial extension called ChromIdent. This tool allows to add chromatographic peaks as a whole to a database. While adding chromatographic peaks to the database, typical peak patterns are detected and automatically extracted into a composite peak table. This peak table is used for identification purposes of unknown samples. By using the peak patterns, it is possible to tell apart complex mixtures and their composition.