Micellar enhanced spectrofluorometric determination of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b in fresh waters

The enhancement of the fluorescence of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b in a non-ionic micellar media is used for the establishment of a new analytical method for the determination of these pigments. After optimization of the variables, including concentration of surfactant, pH, temperature and percentage of organic solvent, the analytical figures of merit are determined. High recovery percentages are found when the method is applied to the simultaneous determination of chlorophyll a and b in synthetic mixtures. Finally, the method is used for the determination of both chlorophylls in local fresh waters, finding excellent agreement with the results obtained by an HPLC/fluorescence method.