Flow injection chemiluminescence determination of tetracyclines

A fast and simple flow injection chemiluminescence method for the determination of trace amounts of tetracyclines is proposed based on the chemiluminescence of the KMnO4 - TCs redox reaction in acidic medium in the presence of a sensitizer, OP. The response to the concentration of tetracyclines is linear in the range of 1.00 to 1000 mu g mL(-1) with a relative standard deviation < 2.3% for determination of 50.0 mu g mL(-1) of each antibiotic (n = 11). The detection limits for tetracycline, oxytetracycline and chlortetracycline are 0.40, 0.52 and 0.60 mu g mL(-1), respectively. The recommended method is suitable for automatic and continuous analysis and has been successfully tested for determination of tetracyclines in commercial formulations. The chemiluminescence intensity was found to be remarkably enhanced when in the presence of OP micellar system; possible reasons for this observed micellar induced enhanced chemiluminescence is given.