Enhancing the sensitivity of potential step voltammetry using chemometric resolution.

Enhancing the sensitivity of analytical methods by improving the signal quality is a universal goal in analytical chemistry. In analytical electrochemistry systems, the double layer charging current has been an obstacle to the accurate measurement of the faradaic current despite theoretical and experimental efforts. In this study, a method for sensitivity enhancement for potential step voltammetry is developed using chemometric resolution. Trilinear decomposition is used to extract the net faradaic current and double layer charging current directly from the data matrix of the decaying curves measured at different potentials. The feasibility of the method is proven using simulated data and further validated by two experimental datasets of diffusion and adsorption control reactions. Compared with the conventional approach that records the current data at a later pulse time, the voltammogram of the extracted net faradaic current is an ideal sigmoid curve with a horizontal baseline, even for the samples of very low concentration. More importantly, the analytical sensitivity can be greatly improved when the net faradaic current is used for quantitative determination.

Direct separation of faradaic and double layer charging current in potential step voltammetry.

Double layer charging current in electrochemical systems has been a challenging problem in the last several decades because it causes interference to the accurate measurement of faradaic current. A method for extracting faradaic current and double layer charging current directly from the measured total current in potential step voltammetry is developed by using iterative target transformation factor analysis (ITTFA). The method constructs initial target vectors based on the theoretical formulae of faradaic and charging current, and then calculates the weights of faradaic and charging current in the measured signal via the iterative transformation of the initial vectors. Therefore, the two currents in one experiment can be obtained simultaneously without any assumption. The potential step voltammetric signals of potassium ferricyanide, copper sulfate and paracetamol were analyzed with the proposed method. The results show that the shape of the obtained voltammogram is an ideal sigmoid curve with horizontal straight baseline and plateaus, and the intensity of the signal is greatly enhanced. Therefore, the method provides a new way to measure the pure faradic current in the potential step voltammetric experiment, and may provide an alternative for improving the sensitivity of quantitative analysis.

[Near infrared spectroscopy and multivariate statistical process analysis for real-time monitoring of production process].

Near infrared diffusive reflectance spectroscopy has been applied in on-site or on-line analysis due to its characteristics of fastness, non-destruction and the feasibility for real complex sample analysis. The present work reported a real-time monitoring method for industrial production by using near infrared spectroscopic technique and multivariate statistical process analysis. In the method, the real-time near infrared spectra of the materials are collected on the production line, and then the evaluation of the production process can be achieved by a statistic Hotelling T2 calculated with the established model. In this work, principal component analysis (PCA) is adopted for building the model, and the statistic is calculated by projecting the real-time spectra onto the PCA model. With an application of the method in a practical production, it was demonstrated that a real-time evaluation of the variations in the production can be realized by investigating the changes in the statistic, and the comparison of the products in different batches can be achieved by further statistics of the statistic. Therefore, the proposed method may provide a practical way for quality insurance of production processes.

Feasibility for quantitative determination of deoxyribonucleic acid by using near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy.

A method for quantitative determination of fish sperm deoxyribonucleic acid (fsDNA) in solutions was developed by using adsorption preconcentration and near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (NIRDRS). A high capacity adsorbent of amino-modified silica particle (AMSP) was prepared for preconcentration of fsDNA in solutions. Under the optimized conditions, the adsorption rate can be above 90% within 3 min. After adsorbing the DNA onto the adsorbent, near-infrared (NIR) spectra in diffuse reflectance mode were measured and partial least squares (PLS) model was established for fast quantitative prediction. The results show that the correlation coefficient (R) between the predicted and the reference concentration is 0.9894 and the recoveries are in the range of 92.9-123.4% for the validation samples in the concentration range of 3.00-29.38 mg L(-1). Therefore, the feasibility for quantitative analysis of DNA in solutions by NIRDRS is proved. This may provide an alternative way for fast determination of DNA in solutions.