Determination of triethylamine in atmosphere by flow-injection with chemiluminescence

A novel flow-injection chemiluminescence(CL) method for the determination of triethylamine had been developed. It was based on chemiluminescence reaction of triethylamine and sodium hypochlorite in sodium hydroxide medium, and fluorescein could enhance this chemiluminescence reaction greatly. In this work, the effects of temperature, mixing tube length, and the concentration of sodium hypochlorite and fluorescein on the chemiluminescence were studied. Under the optimum conditions, the enhanced intensity of chemiluminescence was proportional to the concentration of triethylamine in the range of 1~100μg/mL and the relative standard deviation(RSD) was 2.02% for 0.05mg/mL triethylamine (n=11). The proposed method had been used to determine the contents of triethylamine in atmosphere of the laboratory with recoveries in the rang from 96.5%~107.5%.