Low detection limit spectrophotometry

Abstract

An efficient, more sensitive and accurate spectrophotometric process is possible and can be used to obtain qualitative or quantitative results for analytes at limiting concentrations lower than usual. Transmission measurements (incident light power, P0, or transmitted, P) are performed with a fluorescence spectrometer. One cell only is used to measure standards or unknown solutions, placed between the standard holder cuvette and the emission monochromator of the instrument. The source of the radiant power (P0) is not the xenon lamp but the fluorescence or scattered radiation from the holder cuvette filled with an appropriate solution. The analyte concentration is found from a calibration graph, based upon Beer’s law or the approximate formula P0−P=2.303P0εbc, which is valid for dilute solutions. Determination of iron in a reference material, using 1,10-phenanthroline as the chromogenic reagent, was chosen as an example to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed method and clarify several important statistical questions. Also discussed is why and to what extent molecular fluorescence methods are more sensitive than molecular absorption methods.