Aromatic structures of carbonaceous materials and soot inferred by spectroscopic analysis Original Research Article

UV-visible spectroscopy provides an extremely powerful methodology to investigate molecular structures of high molecular weight aromatic materials, not amenable to be characterized by analytical techniques as gas-chromatography, mass spectrometry, etc. However, the interpretation of UV-visible spectroscopic data relative to complex mixtures is extremely difficult and, when the technique is applied to solid samples, could lead to questionable results.