Chemometric Analysis of Excitation Emission Matrices of Fluorescent Nanocomposites

• Published in: Journal of fluorescence Vol. 21; no. 5; pp. 1987 - 1996
• Main Authors: Leitão, João M. M., Tauler, Roma, da Silva, Joaquim C. G. Esteves
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.09.2011
• Subjects: Analytical Chemistry; Biochemistry; Biological and Medical Physics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Biophysics; Biotechnology; Cadmium Compounds - chemistry; Carbon - chemistry; Chemometrics; Dendrimers - chemistry; Emission analysis; Fluorescence; Mathematical analysis; Matrices; Nanocomposites; Nanocomposites - chemistry; Nanostructure; Original Paper; Polyethylene Glycols - chemistry; Quantum Dots; Spectrometry, Fluorescence; Strength; Sulfides - chemistry; MCR-ALS; Sensors; Carbon dots; Nanocomposites; Fluorescence excitation emission matrices; Quantum dots
• ISSN: 1053-0509; 1573-4994
• DOI: 10.1007/s10895-011-0899-y

The performance of multivariate curve resolution (MCR-ALS) to decompose sets of excitation emission matrices of fluorescence (EEM) of nanocomposite materials used as analytical sensors was assessed. The two fluorescent nanocomposite materials were: NH 2 -polyethylene glycol (PEG200) functionalized carbon dots, sensible to aqueous Hg(II) (CD); and, CdS quantum dots attached to the dendrimer DAB, sensible to the ionic strength of the aqueous medium (CdS-DAB). The structures of these sets of EEM, obtained as function of the Hg(II) concentration and ionic strength, are characterized by collinear properties (CD) and non-linear spectral variations (CdS-DAB). MCR-ALS was able to detect that the source of the collinearities is the presence of different size CD that show similar affinity towards Hg(II). Moreover, MCR-ALS was able to model the non-linear spectral variations of the CdS-DAB that are induced by varying ionic strength. The chemometric pre-processing of the fluorescent data sets using soft-modelling multivariate curve resolution like MCR-ALS is a critical step to transform these nanocomposites with interesting fluorescent proprieties into analytical useful nanosensors.