Trilinear PARAFAC decomposition of synchronous fluorescence spectra of mixtures of the major metabolites of acetylsalicylic acid.

Mixtures of the three major metabolites of acetylsalicylic acid (salicylic, gentisic and salicyluric acid) were analyzed by synchronous molecular fluorescence spectroscopy. Three-way data matrices were generated by acquisition of spectra as a function of the pH (between 2 and 11) and of different relative concentrations of the three components. The PARAFAC trilinear model, without restrictions and using one factor per metabolite, was used in the data analysis. A full decomposition of the data matrices into the spectra, concentration and pH profiles was obtained. This result shows that molecular fluorescence spectroscopy can be used for the development of robust analytical methods for the simultaneous determination of the three major metabolites of acetylsalicylic acid in complex background samples.