Flow-injection chemiluminescence simultaneous determination of cobalt(II) and copper(II) using partial least squares calibration

A flow-injection chemiluminescence (CL) system is proposed for simultaneous determination of Co²⁺ and Cu²⁺ using partial least squares (PLS) calibration. This method is based on the fact that both Co²⁺ and Cu²⁺ catalyse the CL reaction of luminol-H₂O₂, and that their kinetic characteristics of Co²⁺ and Cu²⁺ are significantly different in the luminol-H₂O₂ system. The CL intensity was measured and recorder at different reaction times of luminol-H₂O₂Co²⁺Cu²⁺, and the obtained data were processed by the chemometric approach of partial least squares. The experimental calibration set was composed of 16 sample solutions using an orthogonal calibration design for two component mixtures. The proposed method offers the potential advantages of high sensitivity, simplicity and rapidity for Co²⁺ and Cu²⁺ determination, and was successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of both analytes in real water sample. The present paper demonstrated that the simultaneous determination of two metal ions without any prior separation has been possible using flow-injection CL system.