Normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic determination of phenols

Normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography has been used for separation of phenol and its monoderivatives. Multi-component mixtures of hexane (non-polar component) with butan-1-ol, chloroform, butyl bromide, butyl chloride or diethyl ether (polar additives) were used as selective eluents. Silica gel "Silasorb 600" with specific surface area of about 600 m(2)/g and average particle size of $ 10 mum was used as the sorbent. Phenol and the o-, m-, p-isomers of cresol were concentrated by extraction with n-butyl acetate from aqueous solutions. A method for determination of microamounts of phenols in aqueous solutions in the presence of 160-fold amounts of aromatic hydrocarbons has been developed.