Flow Injection Chemiluminescence Determination of Phenol in Neutral Medium

Abstract

A new flow injection chemiluminescence method for the determination of phenol was proposed, based upon the chemiluminescence reaction of phenol, N-bromosuccinimide, and hydrogen peroxide in neutral aqueous medium in the presence of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide surfactant micelles. The chemiluminescence signal was proportional to the concentration of phenol in the range of 1.0 × 10⁻⁷−8.0 × 10⁻⁶ g/mL with a detection limit of 3 × 10⁻⁸ g/mL. The relative standard deviation for 1.0 × 10⁻⁶ g/mL phenol solution was 2.0% (n = 11). The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of phenol in phenol ear drops. A possible CL reaction mechanism was also discussed briefly.

Keywords:

• Chemiluminescence
• Neutral medium
• Phenol

Acknowledgments

This paper was submitted as part of a Special Issue on Flow Injection Analysis.

The authors acknowledge support from the Scientific Research Starting Foundation of Shanxi University of Technology (Grant No. SLGQD0707).