Feasibility Study for the Monitoring of Urea in Dialysate Solution using Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract

We have determined the urea concentration in an aqueous solution using Raman spectroscopy by incorporating a Teflon tube as an effective intensity correction standard as well as sample container. A non-overlapping Teflon band was used as the reference peak to correct Raman intensity variations that occasionally resulted from changes in laser power. To increase the sensitivity, we positioned a copper reflector inside the Teflon tube to maximize the collection of Raman scattering. The obtained accuracy using Raman spectroscopy was 0.53 mM, close to the range of accuracy of previous NIR studies (0.15-0.52 mM).