A novel captopril chemiluminescence system for determination of copper(II) in human hair and cereal flours.

A novel chemiluminescence (CL) reaction, captopril-H2O2, for determination of Cu(II) at nanogram per milliliter level in batch-type system has been described. The method relies on the catalytic effect of Cu(II) on the oxidation of captopril with hydrogen peroxide in alkaline medium. The optimization step was performed using univariate methodology and the factors studied were: pH and concentrations of the utilized reagents. Under the optimum conditions, calibration plot was linear in the range of 0.1-2.0 ppm. Limit of detection was 30 ppb and relative standard deviation for five replicate determinations of 0.8 ppm Cu(II) was 1.89%. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of Cu(II) in human scalp hair and cereals, rice and wheat, flour with satisfactory selectivity and sensitivity. The results were validated by comparison with a standard method (FAAS). The possible mechanism of the new CL reaction has also been discussed.