Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

1.4 CHEMICAL SCIENCES

Abstract

Natural Deep Eutectic solvents (NADES) are green, ionic solutions prepared by mixing vegetal cellular constituents. They are renewable and biodegradable solvents composed of hydrogen bonded donor and acceptor compounds. NADES have a wide range of applications, mainly as solvents for extraction of plants, biocatalysis, and nanoparticle synthesis. Water content is very critical, impacting significantly on NADES properties. Therefore, controlling H2O concentration appears essential for optimal use of NADES. In the present study, Attenuated Total Reflectance – infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR) coupled to multivariate analysis, namely Partial Least Square s regression (PLSR), was investigated as a rapid, label free and cost-effective tool for measuring the water concentration of NADES. Betaine_Glycerol (BG), Choline Chloride_Glycerol (CCG) and Glucose_Glycerol (GG) were the selected model systems, each over a range of concentrations between 0% (w/w) and 40% (w/w). PLSR results demonstrate the robustness of the analysis, yielding R2 values of 0.99 and Root Mean Square Error of Cross Validation (RMSECV) of respectively 0.2602% w/w, 0.6883% w/w and 0.7034% w/w. Moreover, the % relative error achieved is below a 5% threshold, further highlighting the suitability of ATR-IR for water content monitoring. This preliminary work demonstrates the appropriateness of developing easily accessible analytical tools to support the development of green chemistry solvents, which currently represent a major focus of interest in both research and industrial environments.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2020.113361

Funder

MISTIC Project


Share

COinS