Flow-Injection Chemiluminescence Determination of Formaldehyde with a Bromate-Rhodamine 6G System

Abstract

In this paper, a novel flow-injection chemiluminescence (CL) system for the determination of formaldehyde is described. It is based on a strong enhance effect of formaldehyde on the weak CL emission of the reaction between potassium bromate and rhodamine 6G in a sulfuric acid medium. A possible mechanism for this CL reaction is proposed. A CL calibration graph was linear in the range of 0.8 - 200 μg l^-1 and the detection limit was 0.3 μg l^-1 (3σ). The relative standard deviation was less than 3% for 10 μg l^-1 formaldehyde (n = 11). The method has been applied to determine formaldehyde in the air samples.