The oxidations of twenty five organic and inorganic species, with solublised manganese(IV), were found to elicit analytically useful chemiluminescence with detection limits (3 × S/N) for Mn(II), Fe(II), morphine and codeine of 5 × 10−8 M, 2.5 × 10−7 M, 7.5 × 10−8 M and 5 × 10−8 M, respectively. Additionally, the corrected spectra from four different analytes gave wavelengths of maximum emission in the range from 733 nm up to 740 nm suggesting that all these chemiluminescence reactions shared a common emitting species.