Three- and four-way parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis of photochemically induced excitation–emission kinetic fluorescence spectra

Abstract

Independently emerging fluorescence profiles of unknown, photochemically induced degradation products of several naturally non-fluorescent pesticides were monitored using single exposure excitation–emission fluorescence spectroscopy. Three-way parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) was employed to uniquely resolve the pure fluorescent spectra of the overlapping photolysis products. The quantitative utility of EEM photolysis-based determinations was demonstrated by employing four-way PARAFAC models built from EEM time cubes of multiple fenvalerate samples. The 4-way PARAFAC models were then used to predict original pesticide concentrations resulting in conservative limit of detection and root mean square errors of calibration (RMSEC) of 3 µM each.