Conversion of long cell data to short cell equivalent

A method of chromatographically separating analyte bands, the method comprising:

• (a) providing a chromatographic system comprising a pump, a column, an optical absorbance detector, and a variable path length liquid core waveguide (LCW) cell having a shorter path length and a longer path length;
• (b) injecting a calibration sample containing a first analyte into the longer path length of the LCW cell under a set of hydrodynamic conditions, thereby obtaining a longer path absorbance signal tracing of the first analyte using the optical absorbance detector;
• (c) injecting the calibration sample into the shorter path length of the LCW cell under the set of hydrodynamic conditions, thereby obtaining a shorter path absorbance signal tracing of the first analyte using the optical absorbance detector;
• (d) obtaining a superimposable match between the longer path absorbance signal tracing and the shorter path absorbance signal tracing based on an amplitude scaling factor and one or more parameters derived from a dispersion model that accounts for the dispersion of the shorter path length of the LCW cell compared to the dispersion of the longer path length of the LCW cell;
• (e) injecting a test sample containing a second analyte into the longer path length of the LCW cell under the set of hydrodynamic conditions, thereby collecting longer path cell signal data for the second analyte using the optical absorbance detector;
• wherein the chromatographic system is configured to apply the dispersion model in reverse to the longer path cell signal data of the second analyte to generate shorter path cell signal data for the second analyte;
• and
• (f) obtaining shorter path cell signal data for the second analyte, wherein the longer path cell signal data comprises the longer path absorbance signal tracing and the shorter path cell signal data comprises the shorter path absorbance signal tracing.