A Sensitive Chemiluminescence Flow Injection Procedure for Assay of Fluoride in Waters and Humane Urine by Use of Immobilized Reagents

A new simple, rapid, selective and sensitive analytical procedure based on chemiluminescence (CL) detection is described for the determination of free fluoride at sub‐nanogram levels by use of controlled‐reagent‐release technology in a flow injection system. The analytical reagents involved in the CL reaction, including luminol and periodate, were both immobilized on anion‐exchange resins in a flow injection system. Through water injection luminol and periodate were eluted from the anion exchange column to generate the chemiluminescence, which was enhanced in the presence of fluoride. The increased CL intensity was linear with fluoride concentration in the range from 0.1 to 10 ng·mL− 1. The limit of detection was 20 pg·mL− 1 (3σ) and the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 1.02% (n = 5) for a 1.0 ng·mL− 1 fluoride. At a flow rate of 2.0 mL·min− 1, including sampling and washing, a typical analytical procedure could be performed in 0.5 min with a RSD of less than 3.0%. The proposed method was successfully applied to determine the free fluoride in water and human urine, and the results were in good agreement with those obtained by ion chromatography.