Real-time monitoring of picomolar concentrations of iron(II) in marine waters using automated flow injection-chemiluminescence instrumentation

A shipboard-deployable,flow-injection (FI) based instrument for monitoring iron<II) in surface marine waters is described. It incorporates a miniature, low-power photon-counting head for measuring the light emitted from the iron(II)-catalyzed chemiluminescence (CL) luminol reaction. System control, signal acquisition, and data processing are performed in a graphical programming environment. The limit of detection for iron(II) is in the range 8-12 pmol L-1 (based on 3s of the blank), and the precision over the range 8-1000 pmol L-1 varies between 0.9 and 7.6% (n 4). Results from a day-night deployment during a north-to-south transect of the Atlantic Ocean and a daytime transect in the Sub-Antarctic Front are presented together with ancillary temperature, salinity, and irradiance data. The generic nature of the components used to assemble the instrument make the technology readily transferable to other laboratories and the modular construction makes it easy to adapt the system for use with other CL chemistries.