Solenoid Pumps for Flow Injection Analysis

Methods employing flow injection analysis (FIA), particularly for in situ seawater techniques, would benefit from reduction in pump size and power requirement, longer maintenance intervals, and the ability to incorporate microprocessor control of each reagent and sample flow stream. In this work, the peristaltic pump of a conventional FIA system was replaced by three solenoid-driven diaphragm pumps with integral Viton check valves, and the system was tested by performing the simple nitrite analysis, which has well-defined FIA performance characteristics. Sixty injections per hour were possible with flow rates of 0.5 mL/min for reagents and sample. The coefficient of variation was 1% for 10 μM NO2 - concentrations, and the detection limit was less than 0.1 μM NO2 -. These values match the reported performance for this method using peristaltic pumps.