A continuous flow-through solid phase spectrophotometric system was developed for the determination of ascorbic acid based on the measurement of its intrinsic absorbance in the UV region when retained on a 1 mm Sephadex QAE A-25 anion exchanger gel layer which is placed into an appropriate quartz flow-through cell, the absorbance exhibited by this solid phase being monitored at 267 nm. A monochannel manifold was used, the sample (300, 600 or 1000 mu L) being injected into the carrier solution (acetate buffer). This solution also elutes the analyte after developing the analytical signal, and regenerates es the resin layer which, therefore, remains ready for the next sample. The linear dynamic range and other analytical parameters vary according to the sample volume injected. Three calibration lines were established for 300, 600 and 1000 mu L sample volume, which ranged from 1.0 to 20.0, 0.5 to 10.0 and 0.2 to 6.0 mu g mL(-1), respectively. The detection limits were 0.04 (300 mu L), 0.03 (600 mu L) and 0.02 mu g mL(-1) (1000 mu L), the sampling rates 28, 24 and 21 h(-1), and the RSDs (n = 10) 0.87%, 1.08% and 0.90%, respectively. The amount of ascorbic acid in various samples (pharmaceuticals, sweets and urine) were successfully determined with this method.
