Applications of the luminol chemiluminescent reaction in analytical chemistry.

This critical review discusses the results published between 2000 and 2005 on the development of analytical systems based on the luminol chemiluminescent and electrochemiluminescent reactions. An increasing number of non-specific detection systems based on the enhancing, inhibiting or catalysing effect of a large range of compounds have been published. Possible detected compounds and their concomitant presence in samples are discussed. Chemiluminescent and electrochemiluminescent reactions were also found to merge in biochip and microarray development as a possible substitute to the well-established but hardly quantitative fluorescent detections.