A luminol-based micro-flow-injection electrochemiluminescent system to determine reactive oxygen species

A flow injection analysis (FIA) system with electrochemiluminescent (ECL) detection has been established. Based on a specially designed flow-through ECL cell with a very simple structure, the system possesses rapid response and high sensitivity. With luminol as the ECL reagent, the response of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was investigated on the developed FIA-ECL system. After optimizing the experimental conditions, such as the electric parameters, the buffer condition and the flow rate, it was demonstrated that the developed FIA-ECL system works well for quantified assays. Compared with reported works, the present results indicate that the developed FIA-ECL system has the lowest limit of detection (S/N = 3) of 3.0 × 10−9 mol/L for H2O2, which is equal to the level of chemiluminescence (CL). The developed system was successfully used to monitor the yield of reactive oxygen species (ROSs) in water vapour during the work of an ultrasonic humidifier with H2O2 as index. And the amount of ROSs in some other real samples, including tap water, drinking water and river water was detected with recoveries from 92.0% to 106%.