Yue Cui

A new pretreatment method for the gas chromatographic determination of poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) was developed based on a combination of alkaline hydrolysis and acid esterification. The determination principle is as follows: PHB is hydrolyzed to its monomer 3‐hydroxybutyrate by alkaline solution, followed by the esterification with methanol to generate the methyl ester of 3‐hydroxybutyrate catalyzed by acid, which is detected by a gas chromatography. From the comparison of effects of alkali and acid on PHB hydrolysis and 3‐hydroxybutyrate esterification, alkali resulted in a better performance for the hydrolysis, while acid was better for the esterification. The pretreatment conditions for PHB were optimized and the determination performance was characterized.

A disposable, screen-printed electrode based on the immobilization of catalase or tyrosinase was developed to construct biosensors for the amperometric determination of azide. The determination principles for azide by these two methods are based on inhibiting the enzymatic consumption of an electrode-detectable substance (hydrogen peroxide or catechol) on an enzyme-immobilized electrode. Both of these methods show a sensitive detection range and a short measuring time.

The combination of an enzyme-based biosensor and alkaline hydrolysis was developed for the measurement of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB). The principle of the determination is based on that the alkaline condition converts PHB to produce its monomer, 3-hydroxybutyrate (3-HB), which generates a detectable current signal by an amperometric biosensor through coupled two-enzyme reactions on an electrode. This method takes less than 40 min, and results in a linear detection range of 0.5 - 110 mg L-1 PHB with a detection limit of 0.3 mg L-1 by the saturated production of 3-HB; it can also take less than 15 min and result in a linear detection range of 1.0 - 160 mg L-1 PHB with a detection limit of 0.5 mg L-1 by a part production of 3-HB. The method also shows simple operation and high reproducibility.

A combination of enzyme‐based spectrophotometric analysis and alkaline hydrolysis was developed for the measurement of poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB). The principle of the determination is as follows: alkaline hydrolysis decomposes PHB into its monomer product 3‐hydroxybutyrate, which is followed with enzymatic reaction catalyzed by 3‐hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase in the presence of nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide (NAD). The product, nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide with hydrogen (NADH) results in a spectrophotometric signal at 340 nm. This method shows high performance characteristics with simple operations.

This work reports the development of a bienzyme system consisting of salicylate hydroxylase (SHL) and nitrate reductase (NaR) for the electrochemical determination of nitrate. This method measures the concentration of nitrate directly under ambient air without suffering from oxygen interferences. The determination is based on the detection of NADH consumption, and the principle is as follows: NADH initiates the irreversible decarboxylation and hydroxylation of salicylate by SHL in the presence of oxygen to produce catechol, which results in a detectable signal due to its oxidation at the working electrode; the second enzyme, NaR, in the presence of nitrate, reduced the availability of NADH, and consequently, the current difference after the injection of nitrate is proportional to its concentration. This method shows high performance characteristics for nitrate determination with a broad detection range between 10 μM and 1,000 μM, a short measuring time of around 5 min, and a simple operation without sample pretreatment by inert gas purge or oxygen scavenger.