Patent ID: 7456021

Claim:
A method for determining the presence of an activated catalyst site in a catalyst system comprising a catalyst precursor and an activator, wherein the catalyst system is capable of providing a luminescence, the method comprising: a) performing a time resolved luminescence analysis on a reference analyte comprising the catalyst precursor that is not in combination with the activator, to produce a plurality of reference output values, each being associated with a time resolved emission intensity at an emission energy; b) performing a time resolved luminescence analysis on a sample analyte comprising the catalyst precursor in combination with the activator, to produce a plurality of sample output values, each being associated with a time resolved emission intensity at an emission energy; c) determining a reference emission energy and a reference lifetime each associated with a maximum emission intensity in the reference output values; d) determining a sample emission energy and a sample lifetime each associated with a maximum emission intensity in the sample output values; e) subtracting the sample emission energy from the reference emission energy to produce an energy difference value; f) subtracting the sample lifetime from the reference lifetime to produce a lifetime difference value; g) determining if the energy difference value, the lifetime difference value, or both, are an essentially non-zero value to determine if the sample comprises an activated catalyst site, h) determining a total emission intensity value “I” from the sum of a plurality of sample output values which correlate to an essentially non-zero energy value; and i) determining the concentration of an active catalyst site in the catalyst system present in the sample according to the equation c=(a*b)/I, wherein I is the total emission intensity value, a is the extinction coefficient of the activated catalyst site in the catalyst system, b is a measure of the optical path length of the sample, and c is equal to a concentration of the active catalyst site in the sample comprising the catalyst system.