Terbium-sensitized luminescence:: a selective and versatile analytical approach

The special luminescent features of some terbium (111) chelates and the appropriate selection of experimental factors give rise to a wide variety of analytical applications such as direct determination of organic analytes, immunodiagnostic assays and chromatographic and electrophoretic methods, which are jointly presented and discussed in this review. The requirements for sensitizing terbium luminescence provide a high selectivity to these methods. Terbium-sensitized luminescence can be easily adapted to different analytical fields and shows a great analytical versatility. (C)2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.