Electrochemical Detection in Liquid Chromatography: Application to Organometallic Speciation

Abstract

The development of a new technique for the measurement of organometallic species is presented. It combines the resolution of high performance liquid chromatography with sensitive electrochemical detection used in a reductive mode. Past difficulties with this detection system have been overcome including the choice of a suitable working electrode and purification of the solvent.

The redox behavior of the organometals in the chromatographic solvent was studied by cyclic voltammetry in order to optimize the detector cell potential.

A separation of organomercurials and a multielement organometal mixture demonstrate the applicability of the system. Linear calibration curves can be obtained over a wide concentration range the detection limit for trimethyllead cation is about 0.1 ng.     

Microdetermination of Bile Acids by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Equipped with a High Sensitive Conductance Detector

Abstract

Conductimetric detection of bile acids in reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography is described. The solvent system of the mixture of water and organic solvent containing small amount of basic salts such as ammonium carbonate is found useable by removing the cation with the cation exchange column inserted between the ODS column and the conductance detector. Thus, a few ng of tauro-and glyco-conjugated bile acids can be detected without tedious derivatization and hydrolysis.     

Investigating the performance characteristics of the barrier discharge ionization detector and comparison to the flame ionization detector for the gas chromatographic analysis of volatile and semivolatile organic compounds

Abstract

The response behavior and performance characteristics of the recently introduced barrier discharge ionization detector (BID) for gas chromatography (GC-BID) were investigated by analyzing different classes of organic compounds such as alcohols, alkanes, cycloaliphatic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and others. The results obtained by GC-BID were compared with those of gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID), aiming to demonstrate the particular merits of the new BID detector over the well-established FID. The response of the BID not only was found to be strongly dependent on the detector settings, but also shows a high dependence on the analyte class and the individual analyte. The sensitivity of the BID detector compared to the FID was higher by a factor of ca. 4 on average when considering all compounds analyzed. The relative standard deviation (RSD) was better than 5% for the majority of the cases. The BID detector showed better precision (lower RSD) in comparison with the FID for the investigated compounds. Linear calibrations were obtained for the analytes over more than four orders of magnitude with coefficients of determination typically higher than 0.999 and the limits of detection varied from 0.04 to 1.48?ng/s for the GC-BID.     

Determination of Organic Peroxides by High Performance Liquid Chroma-Tography with Electrochemical Detection

Abstract

The application of electrochemical detection to the high performance liquid chromatographic determination of organic peroxides has been studied. The use of a buffered mobile phase was found to be critical to the successful analysis of samples containing hydroperoxides. Using amperometric detection, mixtures of peroxide containing compounds were readily determined. The sensitivity of the amperometric detector was in the one nanogram range for both benzoyl peroxide and cumene hydroperoxide. Polar-ographic detection was found to be a highly reproducible method for the analysis of samples containing peroxides as components of mixtures in the range of 5-2000 ng. The peroxide containing compounds determined in this manner were t-butyl hydroperoxide, cumene hydroperoxide, and 13-hydroperoxy-9(Z)-11(E)-octadecadien-oic acid. The polarographic detection system was used to obtain observed half-wave potentials for the peroxides under different chromatographic conditions. These observations correlated closely with literature results on the polarography of these compounds.     

Analysis of Polar Thermally Labile Pesticides using Different Solid-Phase Extraction (SPE) Materials with GC and HPLC Techniques

Abstract

In the present study, an efficient method for extraction, separation and determination of a limited number (30) of polar pesticides in aqueous matrices has been developed. Pesticides were extracted with high recoveries (usually >85%) from 1 L water samples, using the solid-phase extraction (SPE) technique. Affinities to different SPE materials (C-18 and XAD resins) have been studied for all pesticides. Special attention has been paid to the following 5 pesticides (which have classified by the EC as compounds which are particularly difficult to analyse): benazolia, bromofenoxim, ethofumesate, fenamiphos and phenmediphain. Thermally labile compounds have been determined with high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and UV detection in comparison to TSP-LC-MS. Absolute limits of detection (LODs) for the HPLC technique are usually below 1 ng at 220 nm. Thermospray LC-MS determination shows usually limits of detection of 1-10 ng (SCAN) and 60-800 pg (SIM). All pesticides, which are amenable to GC have been detected in a comparative study with the following detectors: flame ionization detector (FID), nitrogen-phosphorus detector (NPD), electron capture detector (ECD) and atomic emission detector (AED). Element-specific detection of various functional groups of these pesticides has been achieved using GC-AED. Thus, while the FID has the lowest specificity, the AED is the most specific detector. LODs are usually < 300 pg (FID < 20 pg, NPD < 1 pg, ECD < 1 pg, AED < 300 pg). Spiked river water samples (from the River Leine and River Weser in Lower Saxony, Germany) have been used to test the employed method. With the spiked surface water samples recoveries were usually >80%.     

Metal selective flame ionization detection after supercritical fluid chromatography

This work describes the construction and operation of a flame ionization detector for the selective detection of metal-containing compounds after capillary supercritical fluid chromatography. Using optimal conditions for achieving metal sensitive flame ionization responses which have been established for the detector after capillary gas chromatography, initial evaluation of the detector after SFC proved promising. Like the carbon sensitive FID, it appears that the metal sensitive FID is compatible with SFC when pure carbon dioxide is used as the mobile phase. Response characteristics were found to be similar to those observed when the detector is used in gas chromatography.     

Highly sensitive determination of haloperidol in human serum by capillary gas chromatography using a surface ionization detector

A method has been developed for highly sensitive determination of haloperidol in human serum involving a simple extraction procedure followed by gas chromatographic separation. Target components were separated from the extracting solvents with a Van den Berg type solventless sample injector before introduction Into a DB-1 capillary separation column. A surface ionization detector (SID), which has highly selective sensitivity for Substituted amines, was employed for quantitation using bromperidol as an internal standard. Chloroform proved to be the best extracting solvent, yielding a quantitative detection limit of 5 ng/ml (S/N = 2). Comparison of the response to target compounds obtained by the SID, FTD (flame thermionic detector), and FID (flame ionization detector) showed the SID to be superior.     

A Reverse Phase HPLC Method to Determine Six Food Dyes Using Buffered Mobile Phase.

Abstract

A reverse phase high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method to determine six food dyes (Sunset Yellow (E-110), Carminic acid (E-120) Carmoisine (E-122), Amaranth (E-123), Ponceau 4R (E-124) and Erythrosine (E-127) is developed in this paper. The separation was made on a Nova-Pack C18 column using methanol -NaH₂PO₄/Na₂HPO₄ pH=7 buffer solution 0.1M as mobile phase with an elution gradient system. The detection was made with a variable UV-Vis. detector fixed at 520 nm.

The effect of mobile phase composition such as the percentage of methanol or acetonitrile, pH value and ionic strength on retention times of the dyes was investigated. In the chromatographic conditions selected, the dyes were eluted in four minutes. Two calibration graphs for each dye were established by measuring the peak area and the peak height in the chromatograms. Determination limits ranging from 0.8 to 9.2 ng were obtained when the peak area was measured.

Several commercial products containing some of these dyes were analyzed.     

A New Method for the Characterization of Organic Carbon in Aquatic Systems

Abstract

Some problems in organic carbon characterization are briefly discussed. A new chromatographic multi-method for the direct characterization of organic matter in original waters with the simultaneous determination of UV-Vis, fluorescence, DOC, TIC, and organically bound nitrogen (DON) is described. Some applications with UV-Vis and DOC (“CODOC”) detection are presented.     

Simultaneous Determination of Monoamines,Their Precursor Amino Acids,and Related Metabolites in Mice Brain by High‐Performance Liquid Chromatography with a Coulometric Electrode Array System

Abstract

A method based on high performance liquid chromatography with a coulometric electrode array system (HPLC‐coulometric electrode array) using C₁₈ column has been developed for the simultaneous determination of norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (E), l‐3,4‐dihydroxyphenylalanine (l‐DOPA), p‐tyrosine (p‐TYR), dopamine (DA), m‐tyrosine (m‐TYR), 5‐hydroxytryptamine (5‐HT), homovanillic acid (HVA), and 5‐hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5‐HIAA) in mice brain. The chromatography was performed using a C₁₈ column (250 mm×4.6 mm i.d. and 5 µm) with sodium acetate buffer (pH 5.0, 0.05 M) and methanol as the mobile phase. Elution of analytes was carried out at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min. The nine compounds were monitored using an ESA electrochemical detector. Potentials of three electrodes in series were set at 200, 500, and 700 mV, respectively. Optimization of the pH of the mobile phase and the proportion of methanol were also considered. The minimal detection limits were 2–8 ng/ml. Linear (r=0.99) detector performances were observed within a range of 10～2000 ng/ml. Recoveries for the nine compounds in spiked samples were over 90% and the relative standard deviations (RSD) were less than 4.0%.     

High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Assay for Chlorquine and its Two Major Metabolites,Desethylchloroquine and Bidesethylchloroquine in Biological Fluids

Abstract

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the determination of chloroquine and its two major metabolites in biological fluids is described. Hydroxychloroquine is used as an internal standard (I.S.). Drug, metabolites and I.S. were extracted as bases with diethyl ether by a single step procedure. After drying and evaporation of the organic phase, the residue was dissolved into the mobile phase and injected into the chromatographic system. Separation was performed using a normal phase column (Inertsil sill with mixture of acetonitrile, methanol and ammonia as mobile phase. The detection was carried out by fluorescence measurement : excitation wavelength was set at 325 nm and emission at 380 nm. The limit of detection was near 3.7 ng ml^?1 for chloroquine and metabolites. No chromatographic interference could be detected by endogenous compounds or other antimalarial drugs. Because of the good accuracy of the method, concentrations were determinated with a relative standard deviation lower than 7% at the 25 ng ml^?l level for all substances.

An excellent precision was obtained over the range of concentrations tested, 25–1000ng ml^?l. This method can be applied to therapeutic, pharmacokinetic and epidemial studies.     

Development of capillary supercritical fluid chromatography/Fourier transform infrared spectrometry

Summary The feasibility of a new technique, supercritical fluid chromatography/Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (SFC/FTIR), for separation and identification of nonvolatile and labile compounds in complex mixtures is discussed in this report. The design of a high pressure (flow cell) interface is described. The results of a continuing study of possible mobile phases for SFC/FTIR are presented. Finally, SFC/FTIR was applied to a standard test mixture. The current detection limits of one component of the mixture, 2,6-di-t-butylphenol, are presented.     

Evaluation of an ion mobility detector for supercritical fluid chromatography with solvent-modified carbon dioxide mobile phases

Summary An ion mobility detector (IMD) was evaluated for open tubular column supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) when organic solvent-modified supercritical CO₂ was used as mobile phase. It was found that the SFC/IMD interface design in which the SFC capillaray restrictor was directly inserted into the ionization region of the IMD was not acceptable because of low sensitivity that resulted from the effect of the modifier on detector temperature and mechanism of detection. A new interface utilizing a heated nebulizer gas to provide heat to the restrictor and to minimize the formation of ion clusters, and a bent nozzle for enhancing the ionization efficiency of the solute in the IMD ion source are described. Using 5% acetonitrile in CO₂, the minimum detectable quantity (S/N=3) for pyrene was improved from 25.2 ng to 2.1 ng with the new detector design. This compares to a minimum detectable quantity of 0.1 ng when using neat CO₂ as mobile phase. The use of molecular connectivity calculations to predict the drift times of selected analytes is also successfully demonstrated.     

Determination of Saccharin in Plasma and Urine by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

A sensitive and specific high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) assay for the determination of saccharin in plasma and urine was developed. Saccharin is extracted into diethyl ether at acid pH, evaporated, and reconstituted prior to instrumental analysis. Overall recovery of saccharin is 86.9 + 8.6% and the sensitivity limits of detection is 0.15 μg per ml of plasma or urine using a fluorescence detector. The sensitivity limit in plasma can be extended to 20 ng per ml by use of a 2 ml assay volume and detector attenuation. The assay was used for the determination of saccharin in plasma and urine of rats following oral doses of 5 mg/kg.     

Simultaneous Determination of Flunixin,Phenylbutazone, Oxyphenbutazone and γ-Hydroxyphenylbutazone in Equine Plasma by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography: With Application to Pharmacokinetics

Abstract

A high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the simultaneous determination of flunixin, phenylbutazone, oxyphenbutazone and γ-hydroxyphenylbutazone in equine plasma. Samples of plasma or sera were deproteinated by addition of acetonitrile containing the internal standard naproxen. The concentration step consisted of taking an aliquot of deproteinated plasma, evaporating under nitrogen to dryness and redissolving in mobile phase. The extracts were chromatographed on a Spherisorb 5 μm ODS column using an isocratic mobile phase of methanol (30% v/v), acetonitrile (20% v/v) and pH 3.0 1% acetate buffer (50% v/v) at a flow rate of 1.2 ml/min using naproxen as the internal standard. The detection limit for flunixin, phenylbutazone, oxyphenbutazone and γ-hydroxyphenylbutazone was 50 ng/ml.

The developed chromatographic method was applied to the determination of equine nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory treatment. Plasma samples from clinically treated horses administered flunixin and phenylbutazone simultaneously are reported. Effect of different anticoagulants used in sampling is reported.     

Configuration and optimization of semiconductor gas sensors as gas chromatographic detectors

A tin oxide, gas-sensitive semiconductor sensor was configured as a gas chromatographic detector and its performance was optimized. Two sensor housings were compared but little difference was found in performance. The flow rate and temperature of the column and the internal heater voltage of the sensor affected both the sensitivity and peak shape. The temperature of the sensor surface was the most critical parameter. Optimal conditions for the gas chromatographic detection of a mixture of alkanes (C₁–C₅) and hydrogen were identified by using the simplex technique. The detection limit for hydrogen was improved by a factor of five to 20 ppb (v/v), illustrating the value of optimization and the excellent sensitivity of the detector. It is concluded that semiconductor gas sensors offer significant advantages as gas chromatographic detectors for the determination of reducing gases.     

Determination of Toxic Organophosphorus Compounds by Specific and Nonspecific Detectors

Abstract

Sample preparation procedures and gas chromatography methodology are presented for the determination of tabun, sarin, soman, and VX in aqueous solutions. Extraction recoveries from chloroform were quantitative. Peak area ratios of organophosphorus compounds (OPs) to internal standard versus concentrations of OP were linear over the range of 10-1000 (μg/ml when determined by the flame ionization detector and 10-800 μg/ml when determined by the flame photometric detector. Imprecision occurring at low ng concentrations of VX was caused by its adsorption on the analytical column. Acceptable precision was regained by the addition of a weak base, such as atropine, to the sample extract prior to its injection onto the gas chromatograph (GC).     

Use of an Imaging Spectrograph System with a Fiber Optical Sensor and Two Dimensional Cooled Ccd Detector For Solid Surface Room Temperature Phosphorescence of Pesticides

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a development of a fiber optic sensor for solid surface room temperature phosphorescence of pesticides. The system is based on an imaging spectrograph coupled with a cooled two-dimensional charge coupled device detector. An optimization approach using a different mode of reading out data, the effects of moisture in solid matrix phosphorescence and the effects of heavy atoms are discussed. Spectral characterizations on Whatman N⁰1 filter papers of Warfarin, Naptalam, and naphthalene-type pesticides were evaluated. Limits of detection at ng to pg levels were estimated for all compounds. Satisfactory reproducibility of measurements was observed. The standard addition method was used to determine concentrations of Warfarin and Naptalam pesticides present together in a mixture. Results obtained show the potential of the device for the quantitative analysis of environmental pollutants.     

Selectivity enhancement of a metal-sensitive flame ionization detector for capillary gas chromatography

A novel modification of a hydrogen-atmosphere flamo ionization detector (HAFID) is presented which attenuates response to hydrocarbon compounds, significantly enhancing selectivity towards organometallic compounds by more than an order of magnitude. Chromatograms of an organometallic compound test mixture and regular leaded gasoline are presented to depict the specificity of the response.     

Novel Surface-Enhanced Fluorescence D Etection of Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons Separated by Paper Chromatography

Abstract

Amorphous famed silica was used to enhance the fluorescence signal of a mixture of polynuclear aromatic (PMA) compounds separated by paper chromatography. Benzo[a]pyrene-r-7, t-8, 9, 10-tetrahydrotetrol (BPT) and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) were well resolved by paper chromatography using a 50% (v/v) mixture of acetonitrile and 5 mM pH 7.0 phosphate buffer as the chromatographic solvent. A 200–400% enhancement of the fluorescence intensity was observed when fumed silica was applied to the chromatographic paper prior to separation. the results demonstrate that paper chromatography using fumed silica treated paper offers a simple, cost-effective method to improve sensitivity for fluorescence detection of PNA components in environmental samples relative to untreated paper.