Effect of a dual-head short-stroke pump on post-column peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence detection

A dual-head short-stroke pump has two advantages in the post-column peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence (PO-CL) detection system. The first is to increase the mixing efficiency of solutions. The second is to increase the stability of the PO-CL reaction by keeping the aryl oxalate and hydrogen peroxide solutions separate. The detection sensitivities for six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) increased in the present system by using bis(2,4-dinitrophenyl) oxalate (DNPO) or bis(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorophenyl) oxalate (PFPO) instead of such popular aryl oxalates as bis(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl) oxalate (TCPO) and bis[2-(3,6,9-trioxadecyloxycarbonyl)-4-nitrophenyl] oxalate (TDPO). Both DNPO and PFPO increased the sensitivities by factors of 4.1-10.2 and 3.5-8.1, respectively. In addition, DNPO was more stable than PFPO in acetonitrile. These results suggest that DNPO is the most useful aryl oxalate for the sensitive PO-CL detection of PAHs.