Soft calibration in a flow system with electrochemical detection - Application to the determination of phenolic compounds

A method is proposed for the simultaneous determination of phenolic compoun ds in continuous flow with electrochemical detection. This detector has hig h sensitivity and was used in the scan mode such that complete voltammogram s were obtained which were then analysed using multivariate regression tech niques (partial least squares, PLS). Likewise, given the multivariate chara cter of the recorded signal, in the prior optimisation stage, a parameter, the net analyte signal (NAS), was used, which allow one to optimise the fir st-order instrumental response. The multivariate technique used allow us to determine 4-nitrophenol, phenol and p-cresol simultaneously. The mean of t he absolute values of the relative errors obtained for 4-nitrophenol, pheno l and p-cresol is 0.8, 4.3 and 7.8%, respectively. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scienc e B.V. All rights reserved.