Xiang-Dong Qing

Quantitative analysis of triazine herbicides in environmental samples by using high performance liquid chromatography and diode array detection combined with second-order calibration based on an alternating penalty trilinear decomposition algorithm

A novel application of second-order calibration method based on an alternating penalty trilinear decomposition (APTLD) algorithm is presented to treat the data from high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD). The method makes it possible to accurately and reliably analyze atrazine (ATR), ametryn (AME) and prometryne (PRO) contents in soil, river sediment and wastewater samples. Satisfactory results are obtained although the elution and spectral profiles of the analytes are heavily overlapped with the background in environmental samples. The obtained average recoveries for ATR, AME and PRO are 99.7±1.5, 98.4±4.7 and 97.0±4.4% in soil samples, 100.1±3.2, 100.7±3.4 and 96.4±3.8% in river sediment samples, and 100.1±3.5, 101.8±4.2 and 101.4±3.6% in wastewater samples, respectively. Furthermore, the accuracy and precision of the proposed method are evaluated with the elliptical joint confidence region (EJCR) test. It lights a new avenue to determine quantitatively herbicides in environmental samples with a simple pretreatment procedure and provides the scientific basis for an improved environment management through a better understanding of the wastewater-soil-river sediment system as a whole.

Quantitative determination of butylated hydroxyanisole and n-propyl gallate in cosmetics using three-dimensional fluorescence coupled with second-order calibration.

This work presents a novel approach for simultaneous determination of butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and propyl gallate (PG) in a very interfering environment by combining the sensitivity of molecular fluorescence and the selectivity of the second-order calibration method. The excitation-emission fluorescence matrix data are processed by applying the second-order calibration method based on the self-weighted alternating normalized residue fitting (SWANRF) algorithm. The limits of detection (LOD) were 1.2-1.3 ng/ml for BHA and 2.2-2.9 ng/ml for PG. The recoveries from spiked cosmetics samples are in the ranges 95.7-103.9% for BHA and 95.9-105.7% for PG. The proposed method avoids preconcentration and elution procedures, so it considerably decreases the analytical time and the experimental expenses. Because the instrument involved in the measurement is nonsophisticated, the experiments could be carried out in routine laboratories. Then it is compared with the HPLC method in dosage of cosmetics and organic reagents, runtime, cost per analysis and LOD.

Simultaneous determination of plant growth regulators in environmental samples using chemometrics-assisted excitation-emission matrix fluorescence: experimental study on the prediction quality of second-order calibration method.

In this work, with the purpose of developing an effective and inexpensive method, excitation-emission matrix fluorescence data and second-order calibration method based on the self-weighted alternating trilinear decomposition (SWATLD) algorithm were combined for simultaneous determination of 2-naphthoxyacetic acid (NOA) and 1-naphthaleneacetic acid methyl ester (NAAME) in environmental samples, i.e. soil and sewage samples. In order to investigate the prediction quality of the proposed method, different strategies, such as taking spectroscopic measurements in the presence of different matrix interferents and at different fluorescence spectrophotometers, were introduced to build calibration models and comparisons among them were done subsequently. The root-mean-square error of prediction and t-test were used to compare different SWATLD-based calibration models. The limits of detection obtained for NOA and NAAME were 0.36-0.95 ng mL(-1) and 1.32-2.69 ng mL(-1), respectively, for different models. Such a chemometrics-based protocol may possess great potential to be extended as a promising alternative for more practical applications in environment monitoring and for the design of small intelligent and field-portable analytical instruments that rely on statistical discrimination, not complete instrumental separation, of the target analytes even in the presence of unknown and uncalibrated interferences.

Simultaneous determination of pre-emergence herbicides in environmental samples using HPLC-DAD combined with second-order calibration based on self-weighted alternating trilinear decomposition algorithm

This work presents a novel strategy for simultaneous and rapid quantitative analysis of three pre-emergence herbicides in environmental samples using HPLC-DAD combined with second-order calibration based on the self-weighted alternating trilinear decomposition (SWATLD) algorithm. The sample preparation procedure was simplified only by using water as solvent and methanol as extractant and data were measured in less than 4.2 min by applying an isocratic mode. Although the elution and spectral profiles of the analytes, prometryne (PRO), napropamide (NAP) and alachlor (ALA), are heavily overlapped with each other and with matrix constitutes, the method not only extracts the profiles of the analytes, but also simultaneously determines the concentrations of them in actual complex systems, i.e., river sediment and wastewater samples. In the analysis of river sediment and wastewater samples, the obtained average recoveries were 99 ± 6% and 98 ± 5% for PRO, 108 ± 6% and 100 ± 4% for NAP and 98 ± 5% and 97 ± 4% for ALA, respectively. Furthermore, the accuracy and precision of the proposed method was also evaluated through elliptical joint confidence region tests as well as figures of merit. Such a chemometrics-based protocol may be a very promising tool for more analytical applications in environment monitoring, due to its advantages of easy sample pretreatment, green, sufficient spectral resolution and concentration prediction even in the presence of unknown interferences.

A novel fourth-order calibration method based on alternating quinquelinear decomposition algorithm for processing high performance liquid chromatography–diode array detection– kinetic-pH data of naptalam hydrolysis

Five-way high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD)-kinetic-pH data were obtained by recording the kinetic evolution of HPLC-DAD signals of samples at different pH values and a new fourth-order calibration method, alternating quinquelinear decomposition (AQQLD) based on pseudo-fully stretched matrix forms of the quinquelinear model, was developed. Simulated data were analyzed to investigate the performance of AQQLD in comparison with five-way parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). The tested results demonstrated that AQQLD has the advantage of faster convergence rate and being insensitive to the excess component number adopted in the model. Then, they have been successfully applied to investigate quantitatively the kinetics of naptalam (NAP) hydrolysis in two practical systems. Additionally, the serious chromatographic peak shifts were accurately corrected by means of chromatographic peak alignment method based on abstract subspace difference. The good recoveries of NAP were obtained in these samples by selecting the time region of chromatogram. The elution time, spectral, kinetic time and pH profiles resolved by the chemometric techniques were in good agreement with experimental observations. It demonstrates the potential for the utilization of fourth-order data for some complex systems, opening up a new approach to fourth-order data generation and subsequent fourth-order calibration.

The maintenance of the second-order advantage: Second-order calibration of excitation–emission matrix fluorescence for quantitative analysis of herbicide napropamide in various environmental samples

A rapid non-separative spectrofluorometric method based on the second-order calibration of excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence was proposed for the determination of napropamide (NAP) in soil, river sediment, and wastewater as well as river water samples. With 0.10 mol L(-1) sodium citrate-hydrochloric acid (HCl) buffer solution of pH 2.2, the system of NAP has a large increase in fluorescence intensity. To handle the intrinsic fluorescence interferences of environmental samples, the alternating penalty trilinear decomposition (APTLD) algorithm as an efficient second-order calibration method was employed. Satisfactory results have been achieved for NAP in complex environmental samples. The limit of detection obtained for NAP in soil, river sediment, wastewater and river water samples were 0.80, 0.24, 0.12, 0.071 ng mL(-1), respectively. Furthermore, in order to fully investigate the performance of second-order calibration method, we test the second-order calibration method using different calibration approaches including the single matrix model, the intra-day various matrices model and the global model based on the APTLD algorithm with nature environmental datasets. The results showed the second-order calibration methods also enable one or more analyte(s) of interest to be determined simultaneously in the samples with various types of matrices. The maintenance of second-order advantage has been demonstrated in simultaneous determinations of the analyte of interests in the environmental samples of various matrices.

An alternating coupled two-unequal residual functions algorithm for second-order calibration

In this paper, a novel algorithm, alternating coupled two-unequal residual functions (ACTUF), has been presented to deal with three-way data for second-order calibration and it is able to achieve the important second-order advantage. This new algorithm resolves the parameter matrices by minimizing the two functions of measurement residuals and parameter residuals. Compared with two widely used algorithms, i.e., PARAFAC and SWATLD, the performance of the new algorithm is evaluated by using two simulation and two real data arrays in some aspects, such as noise, collinearity, analysis speed and solution. The results reveal that ACTUF can not only retain the second-order advantage, but also be insensitive to excessive component numbers and hold strong anti-noise tolerance. Besides, compared to the other two algorithms, ACTUF can successfully deal with the problems due to severe collinearity.

Removal of Background Drift Nonlinear Interference in 3-D Spectral Arrays for Multi-Way Calibration sing Using Trilinear Decomposition Methods

Fluorescent and phosphorescent techniques have been widely used in the fields of food, biology, environment, chemistry, medicine, life science and so on. However, the spectral background drift often occurs in the spectral excitation dimension, creating the need for new methods to process this phenomenon. There are many different factors which may lead to this common phenomenon, such as the changes in background noise of instrument or temperature. In the work, a new technique for removal of background drift in three-dimensional spectral arrays is proposed. The basic idea is to perform trilinear decomposition based on the alternating trilinear decomposition (ATLD) algorithm on the instrumental response data. In model building, the background drift is modeled as an additional component or factor as well as the analytes of interest and the interferents. As the optimum number of factors (N) is provided by the core consistency diagnostic (CORCONDIA), the ATLD algorithm is applied to decompose the raw data (Xraw) with the factor number of N, then three profile matrices A, B and C can be obtained. Vectors an, bn and cn that representing the signal of the background drift can be extracted from these matrices to construct a 3-D background drift data array (Xdrift ). After subtracting the Xdrift from the Xraw, the background drift is removed, leaving the new data on a flat baseline. Two simulated data sets were firstly employed to demonstrate the reasonability of the new method. The same and different levels of background drifts along the excitation dimension are added into the two simulated data sets, respectively. Then, it is successfully used to analyze two experimental data sets in which significant background drift are present. These results highlight the fact that this technique yields a good removal of background drift. In addition, the good result is obtained by secondary removal for serious background drift. The proposed method can be viewed as a good spectral pretreatment technique. Keywords chemometrics; alternating trilinear decomposition; three-dimensional spectral array; background drift; spectral pretreatment