A Chemiluminiscence Detector for Trace Determination of Fluorescent Compounds

Abstract

A detector making full use of the advantages offered by chemiluminescence was constructed. Light measurement was performed with modern electronic equipment using photon counting and the system was tested using dansyl derivatives of adrenaline [epinephrine], noradrenaline [norepinephrine] and of some amino acids. The detection limits for the 2 catecholamines during high performance liquid chromatography were 6 and 16, fmol, respectively, and less than 0.5 fmol for the amino acids. To reach these low levels all reagents were purified or selected for ultra-high purity. The effects of reagent contaminants and of various optical filters were studied using adrenaline as the test substance.