This work reports the development of a fast chromatographic methodology for quantitation of two phytoestrogens: daidzein (DAI), and genistein (GEN), in river water samples. The proposed method is based on high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) data, and multivariate curve resolution-alternative least square (MCR-ALS) second-order calibration. Initially, the method was evaluated analyzing a synthetic validation set; prepared based on a Taguchi design. Subsequently, the method was applied to predict the concentration of the phytoestrogens in spiked river water samples, previously pre-processed by solid phase extraction (SPE). By implementation of the present chromatographic methodology, a 50% reduction in operation time was achieved (from 7.00 to 3.25 min) when compared with previous work in the literature. Precision was achieved even in the presence of non-modeled constituents and strong background. Thus, the proposed method is a rapid and robust alternative for the quantitation of studied phytoestrogens.
Keywords
emerging contaminants; liquid chromatography; multiway calibration; second order advantage
