Principal-component analysis provides a relatively rapid means for determining if there are two or more components in a single chromatographic peak when using the equivalent of a multi-channel detector. For a two-component system, changes in the shape of the plot for the scalars of the two major vectors were examined as functions of the extent of the overlap of the distributions, the relative amounts of the two components, and the tailing of peaks. The presence of a second component was easy to detect, both in simulations that were noise-free and in many of those to which 10% noise had been added. Some of the same characteristics were found in overlapped chromatographic peaks for masses 44 and 45 for the isotopic carbon species of carbon dioxide and for a mixture of n-hexane and n-heptane for which six masses, that intentionally did not include those for the molecular ions, were used.

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