New Chemical Analysis Methods Based on Redox Reactions Coupled with Chemiluminescence Measurements

摘要

The fundamental chemistry of gold-catalyzed oxidation/reduction reactions of organic and inorganic compounds with nitrogen dioxide and nitric acid has been studied to better understand the surface chemistry, effects of reaction conditions, catalyst configuration and the reactivity of various compounds. The new chemistry elucidated was applied to the development of a prototype detector for gas chromatography--the redox chemiluminescence detector (RCD). The unique selectivity of the RCD was examined by the analysis of complex samples. By judicious selection of the catalyst bed temperatures, one can cause the RCD to operate as a highly selective detector. At 200 deg C the detector senses alcohols, phenols, while it is insensitive to most other compounds. At 400 deg C the RCD becomes sensitive to olefins, and aromatic hydrocarbons. The study showed that nitric acid can serve as the reagent gas for the detection of several compounds, and that the selectivity of the RCD is different with nitric acid than with nitrogen dioxide.