Fabrication of an electrically heated indium-tin-oxide electrode for electrochemiluminescent detection system

An electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detection system equipped with an electrically heated indium-tin-oxide (ITO) electrode was constructed. The heated ITO electrode (HITOE) coupled the advantages of a heated electrode with the optical transparency property of ITO glass. Compared with the conventional heated electrode, the HITOE is integrated into the ECL cell, which could save the expensive luminescent reagent. The temperature of the electrode (T(e)) could be accurately controlled by electrically heating. The Ru(bpy)(3)(2+)/TPrA ECL system and the colchicine/Ru(bpy)(3)(2+) ECL system were used to evaluate the developed ECL detection system. The higher sensitivity and lower RSD of ECL detection for tri-n-propylamine (TPrA) and colchicine were gained by moderately heating the electrode. The proposed method has been successfully utilized to the assay of colchicine in a spiked human serum sample. The results indicated that the developed ECL detection system could provide high sensitivity and excellent reproducibility for analytical practice.