Chemiluminescence determination of barbituric acid using Ru(phen)32+–Ce(IV) system

A chemiluminescence (CL) method for the determination of barbituric acid (BA) was proposed, which is based on the enhancement of BA to the CL intensity of Tris–(1,10-phenanthroline)ruthenium(II) (Ru(phen)32+)–cerium(IV) (Ce(IV)) system. The concentration of BA is proportional to the CL intensity in the range of 5.0×10−3–2.0 μg ml−1. The detection limit is 6.9×10−4 μg ml−1. The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) of determining 11 samples containing 0.20 μg ml−1 BA is 3.2%. This CL method has been successfully applied to the determination of BA in the synthetic samples. The mechanism of CL reaction was studied.