Flow-assisted analysis

The demand for direct, robust and quantitative determination of analytes even in complex matrices of different origin produced an increase interest in flow-assisted techniques for automatization of chemical analysis with high throughput and reproducibility. With this aim, thanks to simple instrumentation, high sensitivity and low background signal, chemiluminescence, bioluminescence and electrochemiluminescence represent suitable detection techniques to which flow-analysis can be coupled. In this Chapter the fundamental, instrumental setup and recent application are reviewed for flow-injection analysis and its variants, and for field-flow fractionation, a flow-assisted technique suitable to separate analytes with high molar mass, for the development of assays with reliability, rapidity and robustness. A discussion on the miniaturization of these approaches to add features such as low reagent consumption and reduced analysis time is also presented.