Qualitative observation of chemical change rate for quercetin in basic medium characterized by time resolved UV-vis spectroscopy

Abstract Time resolved spectroscopy was applied to a real time investigation of chemical reaction of quercetin (5.0 × 10 − 5  mol L − 1 ) with various concentrations of sodium hydroxide (from 5.0 × 10 − 3 to 1.0 mol L − 1 ). The UV–vis absorption spectra acquired first reveal that there was an intermediate product with an absorption band centered at 427 nm formed during the reaction. The rates of chemical changes for quercetin in basic medium are also first obtained by the present work. The transient spectral information obtained is valuable for understanding the molecular mechanism of the reaction between quercetin and sodium hydroxide.