Use of amino-carbonyl reaction and chemiluminescence detection to the flow-injection determination of some amino acids

Some amino acids were found to react with carbonyl functional groups of humic acid. Products of this reaction give strong chemiluminescence during their oxidation with N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) in alkaline solution. Humic acids from different sources produced similiar signal magnitude. This effect was employed to the flow-injection determination of glycine and arginine in pharmaceutical formulations with considerable selectivity against different amino compounds. The proposed method is fast and simple. Detection limit is 0.20 and 0.25 mg.l(-1) for glycine and arginine respectively, and 115 samples per h can be determined. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.