Long-lasting chemiluminescence of lucigenin/p-aminophenol system for detection of p-aminophenol in environmental water

Long-lasting chemiluminescence of lucigenin/p-aminophenol (4-AP) system is explored for the first time and possible chemiluminescence enhancement mechanism is also proposed in this work. 4-AP can enhance chemiluminescence of lucigenin nearly 150 times and is stable for nearly 5 min, which overcomes the need of flow syringe pump. While o-aminophenol (2-AP) slightly enhances chemiluminescence of lucigenin and m-aminophenol (3-AP) does not. Thus, it can be applied in discrimination of three aminophenol isomers. More importantly, cyclic voltammetry proves the lowest oxidation peak for 4-AP at 115 mV, which is speculated to be the main reason for 4-AP induced chemiluminescence enhancement. It has been applied in chemiluminescence enhancement detection of 4-AP and p-nitrophenol (4-NP) from 80 nM to 60 μM, from 0.5 μM to 60 μM with limit of detection (LOD) of 26 nM and 0.17 μM, respectively. It shows high selectivity and anti-interference in chemiluminescence enhancment detection of 4-AP and 4-NP towards other organic compounds and metal ions. It also exhibits high accuracy in chemiluminescence enhancment detection of 4-AP and 4-NP in lake water with recoveries from 98.7% to 101.5% for and recoveries from 98.7% to 102.2%, respectively. It expands the study of long-lasting lucigenin chemiluminescence system and chemiluminescence method utilized in discrimination of aminophenols isomers.