Light emitting diode induced chemiluminescence and its application as a detector for high performance liquid chromatography

Some categories of compounds, including quinones, coumarins, flavins, and xanthene dyes, were found to produce strong chemiluminescence (CL) signals with luminol in sample solution under the irradiation of light emitting diodes (LED) with proper wavelengths. Based on this phenomenon, a compact photochemical reactor was constructed to develop a novel LED induced CL detector for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The effects of related parameters including LED wavelength, luminol concentration, flow rate, pH, and eluents of HPLC were investigated in detail. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detections (LODs) were in the range of 0.2–80 ng mL−1. The applications and accuracy of the proposed method were validated by analyzing food samples such as milk powder, beer, candy and beverage with satisfactory results.