Though luminol is one of the most
prominent and extensively studied
luminophores in ECL studies, only H2O2 has been
widely used as a co-reactant. This limits the variety of applications
because of the short-time radical stability and low quantum efficiency.
In the present work, we identified dicyclohexylamine (DCHA) as a new
and highly efficient anodic co-reactant in ECL for the luminol molecule.
The electrochemical and ECL behavior of the luminol/DCHA system was
studied on a simple bare GCE surface, which results in two anodic
ECL peaks at the potential region of +0.38 and +0.94 V vs Ag/AgCl.
The evidence of (DCHA•+) and O2
•– generated in the system was detected via flat-cell electron spin
resonance (ESR) spectroscopy experiments at ∼20 °C. Using
the bimodal ECL system, the highly sensitive detection of luminol
was achieved with the detection limit down to 1.5 pM. Further, a homebuilt
electrochemiluminescent detector coupled with a flow injection analysis
(ECL-FIA) system was adopted to detect the DCHA contaminant in harvested
honey, which achieved higher detection and sensitivity under the optimized
experimental conditions. DCHA was detected in the range of 10 nM to
100 μM with the detection limit of 2 nM (S/N = 3). The present
findings of new luminol/DCHA ECL signals produced a strong ECL emission,
which leads to a greater potential to meet the fast-developing analytical
application of a luminol-based ECL system.