Quality control of gasohol using a micro-unit for membraneless gas diffusion

This work describes the development of a new spectrophotometric flow technique suitable for monitoring of ethanol content in gasohol fuel. Membraneless gas-diffusion (MBL-GD) was applied with one-step aqueous extraction of gasohol (1:2 gasohol/water). Segments of aqueous extract and color developing reagent were allowed to flow into two separate channels in the MBL-GD device. Inside the device, ethanol vapor can diffuse across a small headspace between the two channels (donor and acceptor). Introduction of an air-segment behind the zone of acceptor reagent to stop dispersion of the colored zone greatly improves the rapidity of analysis using this MBL-GD technique. Two methods were developed for quality control of gasohol by measuring ethanol content. Method I is suitable for direct calibration of E5 and E10. Method II is recommended for E20. These methods have high accuracy with good precision (% RSD: 1 to 4.9, n&#8201;=&#8201;45) and have a sample throughput of 26 samples per hour. E10 samples were compared with analysis using a standard GC method. </p

Transparent Cross-Flow Platform as Chemiluminescence Detection Cell in Cross Injection Analysis

This work presents the use of a transparent ‘Cross Injection Analysis’ (CIA) platform as a flow system for chemiluminescence (CL) measurements. The CL-CIA flow device incorporates introduction channels for samples and reagents, and the reaction and detection channels are in one acrylic unit. A photomultiplier tube placed above the reaction channel detects the emitted luminescence. The system was applied to the analysis of (i) Co(II) via the Co(II)-catalyzed H2O2-luminol reaction and (ii) paracetamol via its inhibitory effect on the catalytic activity of Fe(CN)63− on the H2O2-luminol reaction. A linear calibration was obtained for Co(II) in the range of 0.002 to 0.025 mg L−1 Co(II) (r2 = 0.9977) for the determination of Co(II) in water samples. The linear calibration obtained for the paracetamol was 10 to 200 mg L−1 (r2 = 0.9906) for the determination of pharmaceutical products. The sample throughput was 60 samples h−1. The precision was ≤4.2% RSD. The consumption of the samples and reagents was ca. 170 µL per analysis cycle