Infusions of Mikania glomerata Sprengel (guaco) leaves are used in Brazil for the treatment of respiratory diseases. Coumarin is the chemical marker of guaco for quality control purposes. This work proposes a voltammetric methodology to determine coumarin by using a boron-doped diamond electrode. At pH 10 (0.1 mol L-1 Britton-Robinson buffer solution), coumarin is irreversibly oxidized around +1.77 V in a process predominantly controlled by diffusion. The methodology described here presented a linear range from 1.54 to 15.3 µg mL-1 with limits of detection and quantification of 0.20 and 0.62 µg mL-1, respectively. Analysis of variance confirmed the significance of the regression and the absence of lack-of-fit at the confidence level of 95%. Infusion of commercial guaco leaves was directly analyzed, and results were in agreement with high-performance liquid chromatography after applying the paired t-test at a confidence level of 95%.

Um método para detecção de adulterações de misturas de biodiesel/diesel (B5) com óleo de soja empregando espectrometria UV-Vis é proposto. O estudo envolve 90 amostras compreendendo misturas B5 com e sem a adição de óleo de soja (0,5 a 2,5% v/v). Uma discriminação apropriada foi obtida utilizando classificadores SIMCA (modelagem independente e flexível por analogia de classe), KNN (K-vizinhos mais próximos), PLS-DA (análise discriminante por mínimos quadrados parciais) e SPA-LDA (análise discriminante linear com algoritmo de projeções sucessivas).

A method for detecting adulterations of biodiesel/diesel blends (B5) with soybean oil using UV-Vis spectrometry is proposed. The study involves 90 samples comprising B5 blends with and without the addition of soybean oil (0.5 to 2.5% v/v). Suitable discrimination was achieved by using SIMCA (soft independent modeling of class analogy), KNN (K-nearest neighbors), PLS-DA (partial least squares discriminant analysis) and SPA-LDA (linear discriminant analysis with spectral variables selected by the successive projections algorithm) classifiers.

Um novo método para determinação de metronidazol, baseado no monitoramento espectrométrico do sal de diazônio produzido in-line pelos íons nitrito, liberados numa hidrólise alcalina, foi desenvolvido e aplicado com sucesso a comprimidos (r = 0,9993, 2,0-20,0 mg L-1, LD = 0,7 mg L-1), sem interferência de ingredientes comumente presentes.

A new method for metronidazole determination, based on spectrometric monitoring of a diazonium salt produced in-line by alkaline hydrolysis released nitrite ions, was developed and successfully applied to pharmaceutical tablets (r = 0.9993, 2.0-20.0 mg L-1, DL = 0.7 mg L-1) with no interference from common ingredients accompanying the drug.