[Time resolved UV-Vis absorption spectra of quercetin reacting with various concentrations of sodium hydroxide]

A real time investigation of chemical reaction process of quercetin with various concentrations of sodium hydroxide was performed by using an intensified spectroscopic detector ICCD. The time resolved UV-Vis absorption spectra of 5 x 10(-5) mol x L(-1) quercetin respectively reacting with sodium hydroxide at concentrations of 2, 0.2, 0.1, 0.04 and 0.02 mol x L(-1) were acquired. A total of 200 spectra with the same exposure time of 0.1 ms for each spectrum but different time interval between two consecutive spectra were recorded for each reaction. The first 50 spectra have the time interval of 20 ms, the next 50 have 1 s, and the last 100 have 2 s. Results indicate that quercetin reacted with sodium hydroxide easily and there was an intermediate product formed during the reaction, with different concentrations of reactants, the changes of absorption bands were the same, but the moments at which the changes happened were different and the total reaction time was various from 1 s to 100 s. Spectra recorded showed the disappearing process of the typical bands centered at 254 and 374 nm of pure quercetin, the growing and disappearing processes of a new band centered at 427 nm of the intermediate product, and the growing process of the new band centered at 314 nm of the final product obviously. No other transient spectroscopic data are currently available on the reaction of quercrtin with sodium hydroxide, the results obtained in the present work provide useful experimental data for the study of the microscopic process of the reaction.