Matched filtering with background suppression for improved quality of base peak chromatograms and mass spectra in liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry

A time domain filter that combines the properties of matched filtering and two-fold differentiation is presented. The filter coefficients are given by the second derivative of a Gaussian model peak, controlled by the setting of two parameters related to the chromatographic system. The fundamental characteristics of the filter were derived, and its applicability demonstrated for real liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) data. The filter is primarily intended as a fast pre-processing step, for a mass chromatogram with 320 scans over 700 mass channels the computation time was 0.6 s on a standard PC. Base peak chromatograms with improved peak detection capability and mass spectra useful for compound identification were obtained with filtered data. The most significant effect of the described filter is background reduction due to the differentiation, which in combination with the matched filter can be performed with maintained or even improved signal-to-noise ratio.