A comparison of three algorithms for chromatograms alignment

In this paper the performance of three alignment algorithms, correlation optimized warping, parametric time warping and semi-parametric time warping, is compared on real chromatograms. Among these, parametric time warping is the simplest and fastest; generally less than 1 s is required to align two chromatograms. It does not require the optimization of input parameters and allows the alignment of peak shifts in only one direction, or non-complex peak shifts in both directions. With correlation optimized warping and semi-parametric time warping complex peak shifts in both directions can be corrected but at the expense of the optimization of two input parameters. Semi-parametric time warping requires the selection of the proper number of B-splines in the warping function and, if necessary, the optimization of the penalty parameter. Often the default values can be used to obtain aligned signals. The optimization of the input parameters for correlation optimized warping (section length, slack) is not easy and time-consuming. Moreover, dependent on the input parameters, the computation time of the correlation optimized warping algorithm can be twice as long as for semi-parametric time warping for which computation times up to 23 s are required. However, the performance of both algorithms is equally good considering the improvement of the precision of the peak retention times and correlation coefficients between the chromatograms, after alignment. For the data aligned in this study, the average retention time precision and the lowest correlation before warping were 14 and 0.17, and were improved to three and 0.83, and six and 0.87 after warping, with correlation optimized warping and semi-parametric time warping, respectively.