New chemiluminescence detection method of aliphatic conjugated dienes using electrogenerated tris(2,2′-bipyridine)ruthenium(III)

Tris(2,2'-bipyridine)ruthenium(III) will undergo a chemiluminescent reaction with an appropriate reducing agent. Organic compounds with conjugated double bonds such as 2,4-hexadiene and alpha-terpinene were tested between a pH of 3 and 7 and found to act as chemiluminescent reducing agents. The chemiluminescent intensities for aliphatic conjugated dienes were dependent upon the pH at which the chemiluminescence reaction was conducted, and intense chemiluminescence was observed in acidic aqueous solutions. It has been shown that the electron-withdrawing/donating character of the functional group attached to the carbon atoms building conjugated double bonds influences the chemiluminescent efficiency of the reaction. A novel chromatographic method for the determination of aliphatic conjugated dienes based on the chemiluminescent reaction was developed. The lowest detection limit of 0.6 pmol in high-performance liquid chromatography was found for 2,5-dimethyl-2,4-hexadiene at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3.