<title>Novel biological sources of electrochemiluminescence and potential applications to metals detection</title>

Abstract

Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) is an electrochemical means of generating light from certain organic-metal complexes (e.g., Cr, Os, or Ru with bipyridine) and other types of molecules. Thus, it may be possible to develop an ECL-based metals sensor or biosensor consisting of organic molecules coated onto electrodes which emit light only upon complexation of particular metal ions and application of a small voltage. Toxic metals in water sources are of environmental concern. Some marine invertebrates, such as tunicates (i.e., `sea squirts') and molluscs, are noted for their ability to concentrate toxic metals as much as 100 million-fold over ambient seawater concentrations. In the present work, extracts from a tunicate species, as well as synthetic tunicate blood pigments or `tunichromes', oysters, and other organisms are examined for intrinsic ECL in the presence and absence of various metal ions. Results suggest a promising novel, potentially sensitive, and specific means for metal ion detection based on ECL.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.