Application of factorial design to improve a FIA system for penicillin determination

A potentiometric FIA system for penicillin determination, employing penicillinase [E.C. 3.5.2.6] immobilized on silica gel, packed into a reactor, was improved by the use of statistically designed experiments. A two-level and three-factor factorial was used to find the best working conditions evaluating the influence of some parameters on the signal response of the system and the number of determinations per hour. These parameters were analyzed individually obtaining two level of the variables to be used in the factorial design: length of the reactor (1.5 and 2.0 cm), carrier flow rate (1.6 and 2.2 ml min−1) and sample volume (100 and 150 μl). The pure error on the measurements was estimated by authentic repetitions. The ideal working conditions taking into account a compromise between the best response signal and the number of determinations per hour (with the same importance) being chosen the level of factors: length of reactor 1.5 cm, carrier flow rate 2.2 ml min−1 and sample volume of 150 μl. Under these conditions the system allowed to analyze was about 45 samples per hour, during 73 days, with a standard deviation of 2.4% at concentration range between 10−1 and 10−3 mol l−1.