Development and evaluation of microfluidic device for the determination of organophosphorus pesticide incorporating monolith based immobilized AChE with spectrophotometric detection

A spectrophotometric microfluidic bioreactor system is described for the determination of organophosphorus pesticides. The glass chip was designed and fabricated for in situ monolithic preparation and subsequently acetlycholineserase (AChE) immobilization via a covalent bonding method. The porous polymer monolith was prepared using glycidyl methacrylate, ethylenedimethacrylate and 2,2-dimethoxy-1,2-diphenylethan-1-one in binary porogenic solvents of cyclohexanol and dodecanol. The epoxide groups of monolith were reacted with ethylenediamine and gluteraldehyde to allow immobilization of the enzyme using their amine groups. Organophosphorus pesticides can be determined by measuring their inhibition effect on the enzyme AChE using Ellman's reaction. A linear relationship between the absorbance and percentage inhibitions was obtained over the concentration range of 0.25 to 2.50?mg?L^?1 paraoxon with a correlation coefficient (r ²) of 0.9974. The limit of detection (LOD) defined as 10% inhibition (I ₁₀) was 0.17?mg?L^?1 for paraoxon. The relative standard deviations (RSD) of 1.0?mg?L^?1 paraoxon was 3.73% (n?=?5). The proposed µFI system incorporates efficient enzyme immobilization and reduces reagent consumption and waste production and could thus be considered to be more environmentally friendly.     

Development of sequential injection spectrophotometric method for determination of mercury (II) using pyrogallol red

A sequential injection analysis (SIA) spectrophotometric method for the determination of trace amount of mercury (II) with pyrogallol red (PGR) was described. The method was based on the measurement of absorbance of the mercury (II)–PGR complex, yielding a light yellow-coloured product at pH 9.0 with absorption maximum at 370 nm. The SIA parameters affecting the signal response were optimised in order to obtain the better sensitivity and minimum reagent consumption. The linear range for determination of mercury (II) was over the range of 0.1–2.0 mg L^?1. The limit of detection and limit of quantification, calculated following IUPAC were 0.06 and 0.10 mg L^?1, respectively. The repeatability was 1.25% (n = 10) for 0.5 mg L^?1 of mercury (II). The proposed method was successfully applied to determine the mercury (II) in commercial cosmetics, local Thai traditional medicines and water samples with a sampling rate of 40 h^?1. Results obtained were in justifiable agreement with those obtained by the official ICP-MS method at the 95% confidence level.