Talanta 56 (2002) 539–545 Chemiluminescence TAS for the determination of atropine and pethidine Paul A. Greenwood, Carolyn Merrin, Tom McCreedy, Gillian M. Greenway * Department of Chemistry, Uniersity of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull HU67RX, UK Received 1 August 2001; received in revised form 25 September 2001; accepted 3 October 2001 Abstract A novel chemiluminescence micro-total analytical system (TAS) is described for the determination of atropine and pethidine. Reagents were moved though the 200-m wide channels of a glass chip using a negative pressure pumping system. Linear calibrations were obtained for the system over three-orders of magnitude, with detection limits of 3.8 ×10 -9 and 7.7 ×10 -8 M, respectively for atropine and pethidine and R.S.D. of 5%. This is the first report on the use of TAS to determine atropine with chemically oxidised tris (2,2-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) chemiluminescence. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: TAS; Chemiluminescence; Atropine; Pethidine www.elsevier.com/locate/talanta 1. Introduction Atropine (Fig. 1) is a principal alkaloid, ex- tracted from ‘Atropa belladonna’ and is often known as deadly nightshade. It may induce hal- lucinogenic effects and is generally noted for its anticholinergenic toxicity. It is used for medici- nal purposes in the treatment of eye diseases and as an antidote to opium. It has been ana- lytically quantified using a bulk acoustic wave sensor [1] (achieving a limit of detection of 2 × 10 -6 M), an ion-selective piezoelectric sensor [2] (achieving a limit of detection of 5 ×10 -9 M) and a limit of detection of 3.5 ×10 -9 M has been achieved using solvent extraction coupled to a reverse micellar mediated chemilumines- cence detection system. Pethidine (Fig. 1) is a member of the opiate family and is synthetically produced. It is a nar- cotic often used medically as a painkiller and is also prescribed as a substitute for heroin. Pethidine has been determined in human urine using gas chromatography with nitrogen – phos- phorous detection. This was initially performed using diethyl ether to extract the drug [3] and recently, by solid phase microextraction [4], achieving limits of detection 3 ×10 -9 M. Pethidine has also been quantified using a polyvinyl chloride ion-selective electrode [5], achieving a detection limit of 2.18 ×10 -6 M. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1482-465-475; fax: + 44-1482-466-416. E-mail address: g.m.greenway@hull.ac.uk (G.M. Green- way). 0039-9140/02/$ - see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0039-9140(01)00578-1