A new chemiluminescence system for determination of cobalt.
The chemiluminescence of the reaction of tartaric acid with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of Co(II) in alkaline buffer media has been examined. The maximum emission wavelength is 460 nm. The kinetic curve of the chemiluminescence system has been modelled with a computer, and the reaction conditions have been optimized. Foreign ions, such as Fe(II), Cr(III) and Mn(II), interfere when present in more than 10-fold ratio to Co(II), but several ions can be tolerated when present in higher ratios to Co(II). The concentration range of linear response is from 3.5 x 10(-9) to 2.0 x 10(-6) g/ml, and the detection limit is 4 x 10(-11) g/ml. The procedure has been satisfactorily applied to determine trace cobalt in human blood serum.
Determination of nickel in water by chemiluminescence
The acetone chemiluminescence determination of nickel in water was investigated. Optimization data for the determination of Ni2+ and interference data for over 20 species are provided. The limit of detection for Ni2+ by this method is 2.5 ng ml–1, and the linear dynamic range is from 10 ng ml–1 to 1 µg ml–1. The application of the method to the determination of Ni2+ in river and waste waters is discussed.
New method for analysis of enzymatic reactions: Thermolysin-catalyzed synthesis of aspartame precursor
Aspartame is an artificial sweetener which is 200 times sweeter than sucrose. A precursor of aspartame, N-(benzyloxycarbonyl)-l-aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester (Z-APM) was synthesized and hydrolyzed with thermolysin in an aqueous monophasic system. Graphical plotting methods and/or nonlinear regression have been used to analyze enzymatic reactions because of the nonlinearity of enzymatic rate equations. There are, however, problems: the former require accurate measurement of the initial reaction rate and the latter gives no analytical information. The authors proposed a method to solve the nonlinear enzymatic rate equations with respect to the concentration of a product with the Taylor expansion, especially for the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism (Murakami, Y., Hirata, M., and Hirata, A., J. Ferment. Bioeng., 82, 246–252, 1996). This solution, however, is complex for practical use. In this paper, a simpler solution to explain the thermolysin-catalyzed synthesis of Z-APM is obtained. New methods to determine the kinetic parameters, especially for the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism, based on the approximated solution are proposed. The results calculated using the obtained kinetic parameters can satisfactorily explain the experimental results, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed analysis. We must know the relation between the concentrations of substrates and a product, and accurately evaluate of the result obtained using Taylor expansion when we determine the kinetic parameters using our newly developed methods. The methods to determine the kinetic parameters of the reversible Theorell-Chance mechanism described in this paper is, however, expected to be applied to general enzymatic reactions.