Second chemiluminescence behavior of Fe2+, Fe3+ and Cr3+ in the luminal-KMnO4 system.

A novel flow injection chemiluminescence (CL) method has been developed for the determination of three metal ions, namely Fe2+, Fe3+ and Cr3+, based on the second CL (SCL) signal of the mixture of luminal with KMnO4 in a sodium hydroxide medium by the catalysis of Fe2+, Fe3+ or Cr3+. The possible CL mechanism of the systems, the influencing factors, and the optimum conditions for the reactions were investigated based upon the kinetic curve of the CL reaction, CL spectra, UV-visible spectra and some other experiments. Under the optimum conditions, the SCL intensity was directly proportional to the concentration of these metal ions in solution in the range of 0.10 - 100.00 mg l(-1) for Fe(2+), 0.50 - 7.50 and 7.50 - 200.00 mg l(-1) for Fe3+, 0.01 - 0.25 and 0.25 - 10.00 mg l(-1) for Cr3+. The detection limits (3 sigma/s) were 9.87 x 10(-6) g l(-1), 2.71 x 10(-6) g l(-1) and 5.25 x 10(-7) g l(-1) for Fe2+, Fe3+ and Cr3+, respectively.