Patent ID: 8538983

Claim:
An apparatus for electronically identifying a separation method for separating one or more chemical compounds in a sample, the apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory having a set of instructions stored thereon, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: receive a user query comprising a first chemical structure and a second chemical structure; access a relational database, wherein the relational database comprises substance data regarding a plurality of substances, wherein each substance of the plurality of substances comprises a respective set of chemical substance properties, and experimental run data from a plurality of completed separation experiments, wherein the experimental data comprises a set of separation method properties and a set of separation run properties, wherein each separation method property of the set of separation method properties and each separation run property of the set of separation run properties is linked in the relational database to at least one respective chemical structure object of a plurality of chemical structure objects, wherein each chemical structure object of the plurality of chemical structure objects corresponds to one or more compounds separated in a respective separation experiment of the plurality of completed separation experiments, and wherein each chemical structure object of the plurality of chemical structure objects is linked in the relational database to a respective set of chemical structure properties associated with a particular substance of the plurality of substances; identify, within the relational database, responsive to the user query, a) experimental data associated with separating the first chemical structure, and b) experimental data associated with separating the second chemical structure, wherein the experimental data associated with separating the first chemical structure comprises at least one of separation method properties and separation run properties for separating the first chemical structure, and the experimental data associated with separating the second chemical structure comprises at least one of separation method properties and separation run properties for separating the second chemical structure; determine one or more common values common to both a) the experimental data associated with separating the first chemical structure, and b) the experimental data associated with separating the second chemical structure; determine a preferred separation method for separating both the first chemical structure and the second chemical structure, wherein the preferred separation method comprises the one or more common values; and provide, as at least a portion of query results presented to a user responsive to the user query, the preferred separation method.