Determination of epinephrine based on its enhancement for electrochemiluminescence of lucigenin

Epinephrine was found to be able to strongly enhance the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of lucigenin system by using the anodic potential sweep. Based on which, a novel ECL method for the determination of epinephrine was developed. Under the optimum condition, the enhanced ECL intensity was linear with the epinephrine concentration in the range of 4.0 × 10−8 to 2.0 × 10−7 mol L−1. The detection limit (defined as S/N = 3) was 2.4 × 10−8 mol L−1, and the relative standard deviation was 2.7% for 1.0 × 10−7 mol L−1 epinephrine (n = 11). The method was successfully applied to the determination of epinephrine in pharmaceutical samples with satisfactory results. In addition, the possible mechanism for the lucigenin ECL system in the presence of epinephrine has also been discussed.