Recent development in derivative ultraviolet/visible absorption spectrophotometry: 2004–2008: A review

Several techniques have been proposed for treatment of spectrophotometric data, with the objective of extracting a largest amount of analytical information from spectra composed of unresolved bands. Undoubtedly, a major success was achieved by derivative treatment of the absorbance curves-plotting of the first or a higher order mathematical derivative of absorbance against wavelength (dA/dλ). Derivative spectrophotometry has been applied to many chemical systems, such as pharmaceuticals, foods, cosmetics, and environmental samples.The instrumental development and analytical applications of derivative UV–vis regions absorption spectrophotometry produced in the last 5 years (since 2004) are reviewed.