Professor Grace Muna is on a roll this spring with the publication of another research article this year. This one is published in the Journal of Analytical Chemistry with student coauthor, Chris Mochel, who graduated with a B.S. Chemistry degree in 2020. Mochel now works locally as a scientist at Eurofins, a water testing company. Their research took many years to complete and describes a simple colorimetric method to detect aminothiols in water samples such as urine. The method relies on aminothiols reducing dissolved Fe[III] to Fe[II] which then complexes between the two nitrogen atoms of the three-ring molecule orthophenanthroline. The iron imparts color to the molecule which indirectly signals the presence of aminothiols: the stronger the color (from light yellow to dark orange) indicates a higher concentration of aminothiols in solution.
A Simple Colorimetric Method for the Detection of Total Aminothiols in Urine. Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 78, 43–48 (2023).
