A highly sensitive method for the determination of epinephrine was proposed,
which was based on the perturbation of epinephrine to Briggs-Rauscher
oscillating system involving malonic acid, Mn2+, H+, IO3 - and H2O2 at
non-equilibrium stationary state. The concentration of KIO3 was chosen as a
control parameter to find the bifurcation point in this paper. Results showed
that a well linear relationship between the difference of potential and the
negative logarithm concentrations of epinephrine existed in the range of
1.1?10-7?5.2?10-9 mol L-1 with a lower detection limit of 6.8?10-10mol L-1
and a correlation coefficient of 0.9974. Compared to the classical
oscillating reaction, this method has a lower detection limit and wider
linear range. The effects of some foreign species, which may possibly be
existed with epinephrine, on determination were also investigated. The
proposed method has been successfully used to determine the epinephrine both
in the serum and adrenaline hydrochloride injection.