Abstract The oil from the fruit of peach palm or Pupunha (Bactris gasipaes) is an example of a material with low-cost and good antioxidant capacity. However, Conventional methods for measuring oil content are time-consuming, labor-intensive and use toxic chemicals. In this sense, the aim of this study was evaluated fast and non-destructive spectroscopy methods, such as Near Infrared (NIR) and Time-Domain Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (TD-NMR) (CPMG and ROSE pulse sequences), to quantify the oil content in pupunha flours collected in the amazon forest. For this, 93 samples were used and the results showed three distinct levels of oil in the samples: high, medium and low oil content. Furthermore, the determination coefficient (R2) reached values of 0.92, 0.92 and 0.70 for NIR, TD-NMR (ROSE) and TD-NMR (CPMG), respectively. Therefore, the NIR and TD-NMR (ROSE) methods demonstrate a higher prediction efficiency, with the NIR achieving 100% classification of the samples.

We herein present an experiment where the concentrations of tartrazine, sunset yellow and amaranth in samples containing these three food dyes are determined by system of equations (SE) and classical least squares (CLS) multivariate calibration methods using light absorption data. Firstly, concentrations are obtained by means of the well-known SE method, that is, by solving a set of three linear equations in which the Beer-Lambert’s proportionality coefficients are obtained from analytical curves. Then, it is shown that the CLS method is a natural extension to SE, with an arbitrarily large number of equations. Nevertheless, within the CLS method, the unknown coefficients are found using mixtures with known concentrations of each dye. In order to introduce the students to the basics of algorithms and numerical computations, data treatment is performed in a command-line fashion using a freely available software. Advantages of multivariate calibration models over univariate ones are made clear, and the performance of the CLS and SE methods is compared based on the root-mean-square error.

A fast procedure using time-domain nuclear magnetic resonance (TD-NMR) to detect olive oil adulteration with polyunsaturated vegetable oils in filled bottles is proposed. The 1H transverse relaxation times (T2) of 37 commercial samples were measured using low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) spectrometer and a unilateral nuclear magnetic resonance (UNMR) sensor. Results obtained with LF-NMR revealed better feasibility when compared with the UNMR sensor, with higher signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and larger difference in the T2 decays. Principal component analysis (PCA) exhibited tight and well-separated clusters of pure olive oil (OO), pure soybean oil (SO), and blends of OO/SO (adulterated samples). Soft independent modeling of class analogies analysis (SIMCA) classification model indicated that five brands of olive oil commercialized in Brazil were adulterated with polyunsaturated fatty acids, further confirmed by high-resolution NMR. Overall, LF-NMR provided a fast procedure for screening olive oil authenticity directly in the sealed bottles.

A preparação e caracterização eletroquímica do eletrodo de pasta de carbono (EPC) modificado com o mer-[RuCl3(dppb)(4-pic)] (dppb= Ph2P(CH2)4PPh2, 4-pic= CH3C5H4N), denominado Rupic, foi investigada. O sistema EPC/Rupic apresentou apenas um par de picos com potencial médio de 0,28 V vs. Ag/AgCl, o qual foi atribuído ao processo de transferência de elétrons do RuIII/RuII. Este eletrodo modificado apresentou a propriedade de eletrocatalisar a oxidação da dopamina (DA) e do ácido ascórbico (AA) em 0,35 V e 0,30 V, respectivamente. Como a oxidação dos analitos, AA e DA, ocorreu praticamente no mesmo potencial, não foi possível a distinção dos sinais voltamétricos utilizando-se a voltametria cíclica. Esta limitação foi resolvida empregando-se a Regressão de Mínimos Quadrados Parciais (PLSR), a qual permitiu a determinação de quatro amostras sintéticas, com erros de previsão (RMSEP) de 5,55<FONT FACE=Symbol>´</FONT>10-5 mol L-1 e 7,48<FONT FACE=Symbol>´</FONT>10-6 mol L-1 para DA e AA, respectivamente.

The preparation and electrochemical characterization of a carbon paste electrode (CPE) modified with mer-[Ru0Cl3(dppb)(4-pic)] (dppb=Ph2P(CH2)4PPh2, 4-pic=CH3C5H4N), referred to as Rupic, were investigated. The CPE/Rupic system displayed only one pair of redox peaks, with a midpoint potential at 0.28 V vs. Ag/AgCl, which were ascribed to RuIII/RuII charge transfer. This modified electrode presented the property of electrocatalysing the oxidation of dopamine (DA) and ascorbic acid (AA) at 0.35 V and 0.30 V vs. Ag/AgCl, respectively. Because the oxidation for both AA and DA practically occurred at the same potential, distinguishing between them was difficult with cyclic voltammetry. This limitation was overcome using Partial Least Square Regression (PLSR), which allowed us, with the optimised models, to determine four synthetic samples with prediction errors (RMSEP) of 5.55<FONT FACE=Symbol>´</FONT>10-5 mol L-1 and 7.48<FONT FACE=Symbol>´</FONT>10-6 mol L-1 for DA and AA, respectively.

O complexo [{RuCl3(dppb)}2(µ-4,4'-bipy)] (dppb = PPh2(CH2)4PPh2; 4,4'-bipy= 4,4'-bipiridil) foi obtido por meio da reação entre 4,4'-bipiridina e mer-[RuCl3(dppb)].H2O, em bom rendimento. As características do complexo binuclear obtido, estudadas por medidas de FT-IR, UV-Vis, EPR e análise elementar foram similares às do complexo [RuCl3(dppb)L] (L= N-heterociclo). [{RuCl3(dppb)}2(µ-4,4'-bipy)] é solúvel em solventes fracamente polares, facilitando a sua utilização para produzir filmes de Langmuir e Langmuir-Blodgett (LB). Enquanto que filmes cast e o complexo em solução são vermelhos, filmes LB são azul-esverdeados, provavelmente devido à oxidação da bisfosfina. A natureza nanoestruturada dos filmes LB, se manifestou nas medidas eletroquímicas, já que estes filmes exibem maior corrente de pico do que os filmes cast e dip-coated. As respostas eletroquímicas destes filmes são caracterizadas pelo processo RuIII RuIII/RuII RuII, o qual difere do complexo em solução. Neste último caso, um processo irreversível é observado devido à formação de novas espécies. A eletroatividade dos filmes LB/[{RuCl3(dppb)}2(µ-4,4' -bipy)] indica a possibilidade de utilização em dispositivos eletroquímicos.

[{RuCl3(dppb)}2(µ-4,4'-bipy)] was prepared from the reaction of the 4,4'-bipyridine and mer-[RuCl3(dppb)].H2O, in good yield. The characteristics of the binuclear complex studied with FT-IR, UV-Vis, EPR and elemental analysis were similar to those of the [RuCl3(dppb)L] (L= N-heterocycle). [{RuCl3(dppb)}2(µ-4,4'-bipy)] is soluble in weakly polar organic solvents, facilitating its use in the production of Langmuir and Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films production. While the cast films and the complex in solution were red, the LB films were green-bluish, probably due to oxidation of the bisphosphine. The nanostructured nature of the LB films was manifested in electrochemical measurements, as these films exhibited higher peak currents than cast or dip-coated films. For all films, the electrochemical response was dominated by the RuIII RuIII/RuII RuII process, which differed from that of the binuclear compound. For the latter, an irreversible process appeared due to formation of new species. The electroactivity of LB films from [{RuCl3(dppb)}2(µ-4,4'-bipy)] also pointed to their possible use in electrochemical devices.