Characterization of a micro spiral flow cell for chemiluminescence detection

A 5.5 μl spiral micro-flow cell, mounted in front of a photomultiplier, is made from Teflon capillary (75 cm×100 μm ID) with two inlets for the CL reagent and carrier buffer and a waste outlet. It allows the rapid mixing of CL reagent and analyte and simultaneous detection of the emitted light. Using a flow rate of 25 μl/min for a 0.4 mM luminol-8 μM hemin solution (pH 11.6) and 50 μl/min of carrier buffer (pH 11.6), the slight exponential calibration curve for the flow injection–chemiluminescence (FI–CL) determination of H₂O₂ is 2.5–10 μM and the detection limit is 1.5 μM. The detection limit achieved by using a spiral flow cell is 24 times lower than that obtained from a conventional FI system with a low dead volume tee mixer and a 12 μl flow cell in a HPLC fluorometer with the source lamp off. This luminol CL detection method is successfully applied to the enzymatic determination of -lactate by FI. The lactate sample is mixed with polyethylene glycol (PEG)-stabilized lactate oxidase (LO) enzyme and then injected into the buffered (pH 7.5) carrier stream for CL detection of the H₂O₂ product. Using the optimal conditions of reaction temperature set to 37.5 °C and flow rates of 45 μl/min for the CL reagent and 60 μl/min for the carrier buffer, the calibration range for lactate is 5–50 μM and the detection limit is 2.9 μM. This method is applied to the determination of -lactate in beer.