Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play very important roles in the photocatalytic reactions of semiconductors. Using a continuous flow chemiluminescence (CFCL) system, we developed three methods for the selective, sensitive, and online detection of O2• –, •OH, and H2O2 generated during ultraviolet (UV) irradiation of nano-TiO2 suspensions. TiO2 nanoparticles were irradiated in a photoreactor and pumped continuously into a detection cell. To detect O2• –, luminol was mixed with TiO2 before it entered the detection cell. For the detection of short-lived •OH, phthalhydrazide was added into the photoreactor to capture •OH, and then mixed with H2O2/K5Cu(HIO6)2 to produce chemiluminescence (CL). To detect H2O2, an irradiated TiO2 suspension was kept in darkness for 30 min, and then mixed with luminol/K3Fe(CN)6 to produce CL. The selectivity of each method for a particular ROS was verified by using specific ROS scavengers. For a given ROS, a comparison between CL and conventional method showed good agreement for a series of TiO2 concentrations. The sensitivity of CL method was approximately 3-, 1200-, and 5-fold higher than the conventional method for O2• –, •OH, and H2O2, respectively. To demonstrate the utility of the methods, ROS in three different types of TiO2 suspensions was detected by CFCL. It was found that photodegradation efficiency of Rhodamine B correlated the best (R2 > 0.95) with the amount of photogenerated •OH, implying that •OH was the major oxidant in Rhodamine B photodegradation reaction. CFCL may provide a convenient tool for the studies on the reaction kinetics of ROS-participated decomposition of environmental contaminants.

We firstly studied the chemiluminescence behavior of branched poly(ethylenimine)-functionalized carbon dots (BPEI-CDs). The results demonstrated that BPEI-CDs can be used as a novel chemiluminescence probe in alkaline solution for rapid detection of iron(III) ions with high sensitivity and selectivity. A possible CL mechanism was studied by UV-Vis, fluorescence, CL, FTIR, XPS and EPR spectroscopy. Iron(III) could be selectively captured by the surface functional groups of BPEI and injected holes into the carbon dots which resulted in a great improvement of the BPEI-CDs' CL signal in alkaline solution. The work sheds new light on the characteristics and further application of functionalized carbon dots.

We report the surprising chemiluminescence (CL) behavior of fluorescent carbon dots in the presence of a strong alkaline solution, such as NaOH or KOH. The CL intensity was dependent on the concentration of the base and carbon dots in a certain range. A possible CL mechanism was studied by UV-Vis, fluorescence, CL, FTIR, XPS and EPR spectroscopy. Radiative recombination of the injected electrons by “chemical reduction” of carbon dots with thermally excited generated holes was proposed, which sheds new light on the characteristics of carbon dots.

A micro-plate magnetic chemiluminescence immunoassay was developed for rapid and high throughput detection of carcinoembryonic antigens (CEA) in human sera. This method was based on a sandwich immunoreaction of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-labeled anti-CEA antibodies, CEA antigens, and horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-conjugated anti-CEA antibodies in micro-plate. The immunomagnetic particles coated with anti-FITC antibodies were used as the solid phase for the immunoassay. The separation procedure was carried out by a magnetic plate adaptor and the luminol-hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-HRP system was employed for the chemiluminescence detection. The proposed method combined the advantages of the micro-plate reactor and magnetic particle separation technology with the linear range of 5–250 ng·mL−1. The detection limit of CEA was 0.61 ng·mL−1. The coefficient of the variation was less than 7% and 13% for intra-assay and inter-assay precision, respectively. Compared with the commercial micro-plate chemiluminescent kit, the proposed method showed a good correlation.

A molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) has been synthesized by a thermo-polymerization method using methacrylic acid (MAA) as functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-linker, acetonitrile as porogenic solvent, and 17β-estradiol as template. The MIP showed obvious affinity for 17β-estradiol in acetonitrile solution, which was confirmed by absorption experiments. After optimization of molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) conditions, three structurally related estrogenic compounds (17β-estradiol, estriol, and diethylstilbestrol) were used to evaluate the selectivity of the MIP cartridges. The MIP cartridges exhibited highly selectivity for E2, the recoveries were 84.8 ± 6.53% for MIPs and 19.1 ± 1.93% for non-imprinted polymer (NIP) cartridges. The detection and quantification limits correspond to 0.023 and 0.076 mg L−1. Furthermore, the MISPE methods were used to selectively extract E2 from fish and prawn tissue prior to HPLC analysis. This MISPE-HPLC procedure could eliminate all matrix interference simultaneously and had good recoveries (78.3–84.5%).

Based on the chemiluminescence (CL) phenomena of folic acid in peroxomonosulfate-cobalt(II) system, a rapid and sensitive CL method was developed for determination of folic acid in pharmaceutical preparations and its urinary metabolism processes. Under the optimum conditions, the relative CL intensity was linear over the concentration ranging from 10−9 to 8 × 10−7 mol L−1 (R2 = 0.9991) with a detection limit as low as 6 × 10−10 mol L−1 (S/N = 3) and relative standard deviation was 2.63% for 2 × 10−8 mol L−1 folic acid (n = 11). This method has been successfully applied to the determination of folic acid in tablets and human urine. The blank CL emission was yielded owing to the formation of singlet oxygen molecular pair from the quenching experiment of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane, and pterine-6-carboxylic acid might be the degradation intermediate in this system and it also acts an energy acceptor and sensitizes the chemiluminescence based on the studies of the CL and fluorescence spectra.