Determination of Commercial Colorants in Different Water Bodies Using Partial Least Squares Regression (PLS): A Chemometric Study

A simple analytical method for the simultaneous determination of three commercial dyes (Basic Blue 9, Brilliant Blue E-4BA, and Reactive Blue 2) in water without prior separation of the solutes is presented. Partial Least Squares Regression (PLS-1) was applied for the resolution of the high spectral overlapping between dyes. At the best modeling conditions, mean recoveries and relative standard deviations (R.S.D.) for dyes prediction by PLS-1 were found to be 101.3 (4.5%), 95.7 (8.4%), and 94.9 (6.4%) for Basic Blue 9, Brilliant Blue E-4BA, and Reactive Blue 2, respectively. Estimated limits of detection (LOD) were 0.11, 0.52, 0.49 mg L-1 for Basic Blue 9, Brilliant Blue E-4BA, and Reactive Blue 2, respectively. Finally, quantitative determination of these commercial dyes spiked in real water samples was carried out successfully by the proposed method without the need for solutes separation.