A simple and green method for direct determination of hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorite in household disinfectants based on personal glucose meter

Abstract

A convenient and green method was developed using a personal glucose meter (PGM) for direct determination of hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorite in household disinfectants based on the acetylthiocholine iodide (ATCI)-mediated reaction. In this method, acetylcholinesterase catalyzes the hydrolysis of ATCI to generate thiocholine iodide, which can trigger the reduction of K3[Fe(CN)6] to K4[Fe(CN)6] and generate a PGM detectable signal. When the hydrogen peroxide or hypochlorite is pre-incubated with the ATCI, the yield of thiocholine will be decreased because the iodine molecules can initiate the oxidation of thiocholine to disulphides, leading to a lower PGM readout. Thus, the hydrogen peroxide or hypochlorite can be directly quantified by PGM as simple as detecting glucose in blood. After being systematically investigated, the optimum conditions of the PGM method are as follows: 5.0 min of enzymatic reaction time, 6.0 mM final concentration of ATCI solution, and 10.0 min of reaction time between ATCI/H2O2 and thiocholine. Moreover, the recoveries of hydrogen peroxide in real sample spiked with three different concentrations (final concentrations of 5.0, 10.0, and 20.0 mM) are in the range of 96.3–108.4%. The recoveries of hypochlorite in real sample spiked with three different concentrations (final concentrations of 1.0, 5.0, and 10.0 mM) are in the range of 99.4–117.0%. These results indicate that the developed method can be employed for the detection of hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorite in household disinfectants.