Resolution of kinetic system of simultaneous degradations of chlorophyll a and b by PARAFAC Original Research Article

A three-way resolution method based on PARAFAC analysis of fluorescence excitation/emission matrices (EEMs) is presented to study the black kinetic system of simultaneous degradations of chlorophyll a and b extracted with other interferents from fresh spinach. The excitation and emission spectral profiles as well as the kinetic concentration profiles of chlorophyll a, b and their degradation products, pheophytin a, b were resolved for this multi-component kinetic system. The degradation of chlorophyll to pheophytin under the optimized experimental conditions is confirmed to follow the first-order reaction model. The most obvious advantage of this method is that the complex black multi-component kinetic system can be resolved and studied in the presence of unknown interferents by applying PARAFAC, which is capable of resolving the three-way data array provided by EEMs and giving a unique solution to the analytical problem.