TY - JOUR A1 - Tillo, Adam A1 - Bartelmeß, Jürgen A1 - Chauhan, Vraj P. A1 - Bell, Jérémy A1 - Rurack, Knut T1 - Microfluidic Device for the Determination of Water Chlorination Levels Combining a Fluorescent meso-Enamine Boron Dipyrromethene Probe and a Microhydrocyclone for Gas Bubble Separation N2 - Chlorination procedures are commonly applied in swimming pool water and wastewater treatment, yet also in food, pharmaceutical, and paper production. The amount of chlorine in water needs to be strictly controlled to ensure efficient killing of pathogens but avoid the induction of negative health effects. Miniaturized microfluidic fluorescence sensors are an appealing approach here when aiming at online or at-site measurements. Two meso-enamine-substituted boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY) dyes were found to exhibit favorable indication properties, their reaction with hypochlorite leading to strong fluorescence enhancement. Real-time assays became possible after integration of these fluorescent probes with designed two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) microfluidic chips, incorporating a passive sinusoidal mixer and a microhydrocyclone, respectively. A comparison of the two microfluidic systems, including their abilities to prevent accumulation or circulation of microbubbles produced by the chemical indication reaction, showed excellent fluidic behavior for the microhydrocyclone-based device. After coupling to a miniaturized optical reader for fluorescence detection, the 2D microfluidic system showed a promising detection range of 0.04−0.5 mg L−1 while still being prone to bubble-induced fluctuations and suffering from considerably low signal gain. The microhydrocyclone-based system was distinctly more robust against gas bubbles, showed a higher signal gain, and allowed us to halve the limit of detection to 0.02 mg L−1. The use of the 3D system to quantify the chlorine content of swimming pool water samples for sensitive and quantitative chlorine monitoring was demonstrated. KW - Chlorine KW - BODIPY KW - Fluorescence KW - Micro-Hydrocyclone KW - Microfluidic Chip PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b03039 SN - 0003-2700 VL - 91 IS - 20 SP - 12980 EP - 12987 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington, DC AN - OPUS4-49393 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -