Determination of Melamine in Dairy Products and Melamine Tableware by Inhibition Electrochemiluminescent Method

An electrochemiluminescent (ECL) method has been developed for the determination of melamine based on the inhibition of luminol ECL. A significant luminol ECL can be found at 1.47 V in the phosphate buffer solution at high pHs and low potential scan rates, this ECL signal can be inhibited obviously by melamine. The decrease of ECL intensity was linearly proportional to the logarithm of melamine concentration in the range of 1–100 ng/mL (R²=0.9911) and with the detection limit of 0.1 ng/mL. The method has been applied successfully to determine melamine in dairy products and melamine tableware, the recoveries were in the range of 98.5%–103.7% and 95.5%–106.0%, respectively. The mechanism of the inhibition effect was also proposed, the active oxygen (O₂^{· −}) generated from the electrooxidation of OH⁻ reacted with luminol anion (L^{· −}) to generate light emission, and the present of melamine can eliminate the active oxygen, which cause the decrease of the ECL intensity.