Sonoelectroanalysis: Ultrasonically Facilitated Liberation and Determination of Copper in Whole Blood

Abstract

Sonoelectroanalysis is applied to the detection of copper bound within human blood protein and whole blood. A solid glassy carbon electrode in a face on horn-to-electrode arrangement was first used to obtain silent and insonated square-wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV) of a 10 % solution of whole blood in 0.1 M HNO3 electrolyte and the detection of copper in whole blood was shown to be possible. Analogous results were seen using a solution (3.3 mg dL–1) of ceruloplasmin in 0.1 M HNO3;; in blood over 90 % of the copper is bound to this protein. It was shown that the enhancement of stripping peaks observed in ceruloplasmin and whole blood is not simply due to mass transport enhancement and cavitational cleaning effects alone but also the liberation of copper from the sites in which it is bound prior to preconcentration. The determination of copper status using whole blood was verified by using the microaddition technique to determine the copper content of two sample of laked horse blood. The results were within one standard deviation of an independent blind analysis and it can be concluded that sono-SWASV presents an accurate and desirable alternative to conventional techniques due to its rapidity, lack of complex pretreatment and use of mercury free electrodes.