The high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) behaviour of basic pharmaceutical substances is strongly influenced by the type of column packing, the pH of the mobile phase and the concentration and type of buffer ions. This results in many choices to be made by the chromatographer. In order to assist the chromatographer, an expert system has been developed for the selection of initial HPLC conditions. For this purpose, HPLC data for about 600 basic compounds were used. These compounds belong to the class of CNS-active or cardiovascular drugs. On the basis of this knowledge, which was completed with literature data, rules were defined and a knowledge base was built. The knowledge was implemented in KES (Knowledge Engineering System), a mid-sized expert system shell which runs on an IBM-PC. The system asks for information with respect to the substance(s) to be analysed. This information is given in the form of a table of structural elements. The output of the system specifies the chromatographic characteristics which should be used, i.e., type of stationary phase, mobile phase composition, buffer pH, flow-rate and method of detection.

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