Simultaneous determination of binary solution of triphenylmethane dyes in complex matrices onto magnetic amino-rich SWCNT using second-order calibration method

Simultaneous Determination of Adulterants in Dietary Food Supplements Using Multivariate Data Analysis after Preconcentration with Novel Nanosorbents and Chromatographic Measurement

Background

The increasing popularity of dietary supplements and, consequently, related adulteration emphasizes the rising need to examine the association of food supplements with fraud. Intentional or unintentional fraud in food supplements by hazardous chemicals compounds is a problem that many countries are struggling with. Much effort have been made to effectively and reliably control the quality of food supplements.

Objective

Due to the importance of the subject, an analytical method for the simultaneous and reliable detection and quantitative determination of three key adulterants in dietary food supplements was developed. The proposed method benefits from analytical methods and multivariate calibration methods to progress the determination of adulterants in a complex matrix.

Methods

HPLC assisted by multivariate curve resolution-alternating least square (MCR-ALS) analysis was used to detect adulterants in real samples after separation and preconcentration using novel mesoporous carbon nanoparticles. Solid-phase extraction (SPE) optimization was accomplished by central composite design (CCD). In order to obtain the best results, the MCR-ALS model was compared with the parallel factor analysis 2 (PARAFAC2) model and validated by estimation of linearity, detection limits, and recovery.

Results

The detection limits and linear dynamics were calculated as 1.5, 4.27, and 4.77 µg/mL, and 1–50, 5–20, and 5–20 µg/mL for caffeine, ephedrine, and fluoxetine, respectively. Mean recovery for determination of caffeine, ephedrine, and fluoxetine using the developed method was reported as 101.75, 91.7, and 92.36, respectively.

Conclusion

The results showed that to avoid negative health outcomes associated with the excessive consumption of adulterated food supplements releasing such products should be carefully regulated. The developed method was validated using statistical factors and showed acceptable and reliable results.

Highlights

(1) The application of MCR-ALS coupled with HPLC-Diode-Array Detection data sets allowed the simultaneous identification and quantification of three key adulterants (caffeine, ephedrine, and fluoxetine) in dietary food supplements. (2) A small amount of the novel adsorbent was successfully used to preconcentrate the trace amounts of adulterants in samples. (3) This method benefits from the chemometrics tools and experimental design to significantly reduce the use of toxic solvents and complicated instruments to propose a less time-consuming method for quantification of multicomponents in the presence of uncalibrated interferents.

Removal of bromophenol blue anionic dye from water using a modified exuviae of Hermetia illucens larvae as biosorbent

Organic dyes originating from liquid effluents from the textile industries are harmful to the environment. They are toxic and reduce the penetration of light into aquatic environments. In this study, a biosorbent was produced from the exuviae of Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus) larvae and used to remove organic anionic dyes from an aqueous medium. The solids were characterized in terms of thermal stability, chemical structure, morphology, and porosity using thermogravimetric (TGA), differential thermal analysis (DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and N₂ adsorption-desorption. There were studied the effects of pH and dosage of the adsorbent on the adsorption of the bromophenol blue dye, used as a model molecule. The adsorption kinetics was studied with Lagergren's pseudo-first-order rate model. The maximum adsorbed amount was 571 mg g^-1 according to Langmuir's model. The adsorption process was evaluated as exothermic and spontaneous and was classified as physical adsorption. The prepared biosorbent was tested in five consecutive adsorption cycles achieving 99% dye removal at each stage. This demonstrated the maintenance of adsorption efficiency and desorption capacity. These results suggest that prepared biosorbent have potential applications in the treatment of effluents from textile industries.

Self-assembled monolayers of bimetallic Au/Ag nanospheres with superior surface-enhanced Raman scattering activity for ultra-sensitive triphenylmethane dyes detection

The bimetallic Au/Ag self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) were constructed by using mono-dispersed Au/Ag nanospheres (Ag: 4.07%-34.53%) via evaporation-based assembly strategy. The composition-dependent surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy revealed that the Au/Ag (Ag: 16.83%) SAMs provide maximized activity for triphenylmethane dyes detection. With the inter-metallic synergy, the optimized SAMs enable the Raman intensity of crystal violet molecules to be about 223 times higher than that of monometallic Au SAMs. Moreover, the SERS signals with excellent uniformity (<5% variation) are sensitive down to 10^-13  M concentrations because of the optimal matching between bimetallic plasmon resonance and the incident laser wavelength.