Comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography of heavy oil

The Program for the Interpretive Optimization of Two-dimensional Resolution (PIOTR) has been applied to aid the method development, but due to the absence of specific peaks in the chromatograms it was challenging to apply to the maltenes or its fractions. Nonetheless, an approach is suggested for resolution optimization in cases such as the present one, in which regions of co-elution are observed, rather than clearly separated peaks.