Tchebichef-Hermite image moment method: A novel tool for chemometric analysis of three-dimensional spectra

- The novel Tchebichef-Hermite moment method is proposed for the first time.
- This method can be efficiently applied to quantitative analysis based on 3D spectra.
- The accurate and reliable results are obtained owing to the advantages of the proposed method.
- Tchebichef-Hermite moment method can be easily extended to the analysis of complex samples.

Image moment methods have been applied to the qualitative and quantitative analyses in analytical chemistry owing to their availability. As another attractive image moment method, Tchebichef-Hermite moment (THM) method was proposed for the first time in this work, which originated from the Tchebichef moment method and Hermite moment method. The performances of the THM method were tested with two instances for the quantitative analysis of multiple target compounds on the basis of HPLC-PAD and LC-MS three-dimensional (3D) spectra, respectively. Experimental results indicate that the THM method not only inherits the common advantages of these discrete orthogonal moments to deal with some fundamental challenges (such as partially overlapped signals, uncalibrated interferences, peak shifts and baseline drifts) during the analytical process of different kinds of 3D spectra, but also has its unique superiority in information extraction ability that simplify the determination of optimum maximal orders in moment methods. Compared with the previously used Tchebichef moment method, THM method is much more convenient and efficient.