An expert system for selecting liquid chromatographic separation methods

Abstract The Expert Separation Program (ESP) is an expert system designed to aid the inexperienced analytical chemist in choosing a separation method for High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Properties of compounds—molecular weight, solubility, polarity, ionic nature, acid/base character, pH dependence, presence of isomers, and presence of functional groups—drive reasoning from first principles. Prolog supports a production rule approach to selecting and explaining a separation system characterized by: column, solvent system, buffer and detector.