Sulphite and bisulphite ions are rapidly converted to SO2 gas when the sample is injected into a flow of sulphuric acid solution. However, the collection efficiency by the carrier electrolyte solution, and consequently the peak intensity, is a compromise

between the diffusion rate of SO2 gas through the PTFE membrane and the residence time of the sample in GDU. Accordingly, studies were carried out in order to first adjust the flow rate of H2SO4 (donor) and carrier electrolyte (acceptor) selleckchem solution. A small signal increase was observed for increasing flow rates (Fig. 2D), in addition to a more significant lixiviation rate of the electrode material. Accordingly, the flow rate of 1.5 mL min−1 was considered to be the best compromise and chosen for both, the donor and acceptor solutions. Then experiments were carried out varying another parameter and keeping the other parameters constant. For example, peak currents equal to 12.2, 13.0 and 12.5 μA were obtained respectively when 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 mol L−1 sulphuric acid was used (Fig. 2A), implying the reaction is efficient even at 1.0 mol L−1 and not very much sensitive to the concentration of H2SO4. Similar result was obtained for the analytical path (Fig. 2C), whose increase in the 10–20 cm range was accompanied by a small increase of the peak current due to the lower dispersion of the sample

plug in the stream of sulphuric acid solution. The most significant parameter among all was shown to be the volume of the sample (Fig. 2B), which was controlled by the length of the sampling loop. In this case, the peak current increased from 10.2 to

14.3 μA when the injected volume was increased from 50 to 100 μL. U0126 mouse However, there was no further improvement of the signal, but rather a widening of the peak generating a flat plateau, when the injected volume exceeded a certain threshold value (in our case ∼100 μL). Accordingly, all experiments were carried out using the following optimised parameters: [H2SO4] = 2.0 mol L−1; volume of the sample = 75 μL; analytical length = 10 cm; and flow rate = 1.5 mL min−1. The dynamic range of the new cell was tested using standardised sodium sulphite samples in the range of 0.64–16 ppm of SO2. A linear Org 27569 correlation (R2 = 0.998) was found in the full range, but a better correlation (R2 = 0.99998) was observed in the 0.64–6.4 ppm range. One of the most remarkable characteristics of this method is the very low noise and high signal to noise ratio even at concentrations as low as 0.64 ppm of SO2 ( Fig. 2E), indicating that our FIA system has a much lower limit of detection, LOD, than the M-W method. In fact, there are different ways to estimate the limit of detection. One of the most accepted methods involves a relation between the magnitude of the analytical signal and the statistical variations of the blank signal. Thus, it was estimated as being 0.043 ppm of SO2 from the plots of current vs. sulphite concentration according to Eqs.