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Terahertz Spectroscopic Quantification of Lactate, Pyruvate, and Their Mixtures in Aqueous Solutions
Jiao Hu1,2,3, Mingkun Zhang1,2, Yuansen Guo1,2,3
1Center of Super-Resolution Optics and Chongqing Engineering Research Center of High-Resolution and Three-Dimensional Dynamic Imaging Technology, Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing 400714, China.
None:
Quantifying organic mixtures in solutions is crucial yet challenging in biomedical and chemical analysis. This study investigates solutions of lactate (Lac), pyruvate (Pyr), and their mixtures via terahertz (THz) spectroscopy. Despite structural similarities, Lac and Pyr solutions exhibit distinguishable THz spectral features. Specifically, both refractive index (n) and extinction coefficient (k) decrease linearly with concentration, with Lac solution showing a sharper decline in n. Molecular dynamics suggest that k is influenced by dipole moment intensity and dipolar relaxation time. Analysis of Lac-Pyr-water ternary solution indicates that n is sensitive to the mass fraction of Lac in the two acids, while k correlates with their total concentration. Building on these findings, a method was developed to reliably determine the total concentration and mass fraction of two acids simultaneously in aqueous solutions. This method was further demonstrated to accurately estimate their contents in artificial blood solutions. These results demonstrate the potential of THz spectroscopy for quantifying organic mixtures in aqueous solutions and biological fluid matrices.
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