DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL MULTIELEMENT DETECTION SYSTEM FOR TRACE-METAL DETERMINATION BASED ON CHEMILUMINESCENCE AFTER SEPARATION BY ION CHROMATOGRAPHY

A highly sensitive, non-selective trace metal detector based on chemiluminescence has been developed. The metals, separated by simple ion-exchange chromatography, bring about the displacement of cobalt from a Co-EDTA post-column reagent. The liberated cobalt is then detected by the luminol-peroxide chemiluminescence reaction using a modified spectrofluorimeter as the detector. The metals determined are Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Fe(II), Fe(III), Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, the lanthanides, Th, Al, Ga, In, Pb and Bi. The detection limits (three times the baseline noise) range between 2 and 100 μg l-1, depending on the analyte, for a 200-μl injection. To demonstrate the quantitative performance of the detector, the zinc and aluminium contents of a fresh water certified reference material was determined and gave good agreement with the certificate values. © 1990.