Tris electrochemiluminescent determination of ethyl formate

Ethyl formate is extensively used as food flavor, fungicide, and larvicide. It naturally exists in coffee, fruits, honey, brandy, and rum as well as dust clouds in an interstellar space of the Milky Way galaxy. Herein, its electrochemiluminescence (ECL) property has been firstly investigated. It shows intense ECL in reaction with Ru(bpy).sub.3.sup.2+ as luminophore, and thus a rapid and sensitive detection method for ethyl formate is proposed. Effects of pH, working potential, scan rate, and concentration of Ru(bpy).sub.3.sup.2+ were studied. ECL spectrum analysis was used to reveal the reaction mechanism. At the optimized experimental conditions, a linear relationship between ECL intensities and concentrations of ethyl formate is observed from 3.0 [mu]M to 1.0 mM (R.sup.2 = 0.997). The limit of detection for ethyl formate is 0.7 [mu]M (S/N = 3). The relative standard deviation with 1.0 mM concentration of ethyl formate for nine analyses is 2.7%. A 101.20-102.10% recovery was obtained in a real samples analysis.