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15.4: Chemiluminscence

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The focus of this chapter has been on molecular luminescence methods in which emission from the analyte's excited state is achieved following its absorption of a photon. In Chapter 10 we considered atomic emission following excitation of the analyte by thermal energy. An exothermic reaction may also serve as a source of energy. In chemiluminescence the analyte is raised to a higher-energy state by means of a chemical reaction, emitting characteristic radiation when it returns to a lower-energy state. When the chemical reaction results from a biological or enzymatic reaction, the emission of radiation is called bioluminescence. Commercially available “light sticks” and the flash of light from a firefly are examples of chemiluminescence and bioluminescence.

The intensity of emitted light, I, is proportional to the quantum yield for chemiluminescent emission, ΦCL, which is, itself the product of the quantum yield for creating excited states, ΦEX, and the quantum yield for emission through emission of a photon, ΦEM. The intensity also depends on the rate of the chemical reaction(s) responsible for creating the excited state; thus

I=ΦCl×dCdt

where dC/dt is the rate of the chemical reaction.

Chemiluminescent measurements require less equipment than do other forms of molecular emission because there is no need for a source of photons and no need for a monochromator as the only source of photons are those arising from the chemiluminescent reaction. A sample cell to hold the reaction mixture and a photomultiplier tube may be sufficient for the optical bench. Because chemiluminescent emission depends on the reaction's rate, and because the rate decreases with time, the intensity of emission is time-dependent. As a result, the analytical signal is often the integrated emission intensity over a fixed interval of time.


This page titled 15.4: Chemiluminscence is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by David Harvey.

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