A sensitive chemiluminescence method for determination of hydroquinone and catechol

Abstract

A novel flow-injection chemiluminescence (CL) method has been developed for the determination of hydroquinone (HQ) and catechol (CT), based on their inhibition of the chemiluminescence reaction of luminol-KMnO4-β- cyclodextrin (β-CD). It was found that β-cyclodextrin could effectively enhance the chemiluminescence produced from the reaction of luminol with KMnO4 in basic media. The proposed method is simple, rapid, convenient and sensitive, has a linear range of 1-20 ng/mL for catechol with a detection limit of 0.4 ng/mL, and 1-10 ng/mL for hydroquinone with a detection limit of 0.1 ng/mL, respectively. The possible mechanism of the CL reaction is also discussed. © 2007 by MDPI.