Development of flow-based analytical procedures employing chemiluminescence in liquid-core waveguides

Author(s)

Mariana Amorim Sanchez

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Conjunto das Químicas (IQ e FCF) (CQ/DBDCQ)
• Defense date: 2007-06-13

Examining board members

Fábio Rodrigo Piovezani Rocha; Renato Sanches Freire; Ivo Milton Raimundo Junior

• Advisor: Fabio Rodrigo Piovezani Rocha

Abstract

Analytical procedures based on chemiluminescence are characterized by high sensitivity, low detection limits, wide linear response ranges and simple instrumentation. One of the main troubles is to increase the amount of detected radiation, because emission occurs in all directions, making difficulty the positioning of the measurement cell in relation to the detection system. An alternative consists in the use of liquid-core waveguides, devices that constrain the emitted radiation, minimizing losses during the transport, in a similar way to optical fibers. Coupling flow analysis to chemiluminescence is attractive, because sample and reagents mixing needs to be fast, highly reproducible and accomplished close to the detector, in view of the short lifetime of the intermediates in the excited state. In this work, a cell constituted by a liquid-core waveguide was evaluated for chemiluminescence measurements. These tools were applied to the determination of hypochlorite in Dakin solution samples by chemiluminescence exploiting the oxidation of luminol by hypochlorite. An analytical procedure for salbutamol determination, exploiting the inhibition of chemiluminescence of luminol oxidation by hypochlorite, was developed, characterizing as a promising alternative for the quantification of this pharmaceutical substance. In both applications, results were in agreement to those obtained by reference procedures at the 95% confidence level (AU)