The peroxyoxalate system is still one of the most efficient chemiluminescence reactions and the only one supposed to involve the "Chemically Initiated Electron Exchange Luminescence - CIEEL" mechanism, with proved high efficiency. Besides the academic interest in the elucidation of the mechanism of this complex reaction, the peroxyoxalate system has found a variety of applications in analytical chemistry. This review contains (i) a short introduction to basic concepts in chemiluminescence, (ii) a critical summary of mechanistic studies on the peroxyoxalate reaction, (iii) and some examples of analytical applications. Although there are some recent reviews on chemiluminescence, no specific critical revision on mechanistic and analytical features of the peroxyoxalate system has been published.
chemiluminescence; peroxyoxalate system; CIEEL
