A simple, sensitive, and green method for the determination of 5-fluorouracil exploiting luminol electrochemiluminescence

Abstract

This study presents a simple, sensitive, and environmentally friendly analytical method based on luminol electrochemiluminescence (ECL) for the quantification of 5-fluorouracil. The approach relies on the suppression of the luminol/hydrogen peroxide ECL signal in the presence of the analyte using a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPE). The total solution volume containing luminol, hydrogen peroxide, and the drug was only 40 μL, ensuring significant reagent savings and minimal waste generation, which qualifies it as a green analytical method. Under optimized conditions, the ECL method displayed a wide linear response range from 0.3 to 10 000 nmol L⁻¹. The proposed technique achieved a detection limit of 0.1 nmol L⁻¹ and was successfully applied for the determination of 5-fluorouracil in artificial urine and plasma samples, with recovery values ranging from 95.00% to 100.18% and 97.54% to 103.74%, respectively.