Analysis of Formaldehyde in Air using Post-column Derivatization by HPLC
August 19, 2022
Introduction
There is increasing concern about aldehydes; such as formaldehyde and acetaldehyde as environmental pollutants, which are contaminating the environment in the atmosphere, lakes and marshes, reservoirs, and rivers. Therefore, aldehydes are monitored under various regulations including, the Air Pollution Control Law, Water Supply Law, and Offensive Odor Control Law. As a method to measure aldehydes in the atmosphere using HPLC, the general method employed is to collect aldehydes in the atmosphere using a sampler enclosing silicagel containing 2,4- DNPH and extracting aldehydes derivatized after collection with acetonitrile. JASCO has developed a method for the analysis of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde using a post column fluorescence derivatization with 1,3- cyclohexanedione as the labeling reagent.
This method is used to analyze aldehydes in the atmosphere. As a result, aldehydes in the atmosphere extracted with water were analyzed successfully as well as the source of aldehydes in water.
Experimental
Results
In figure 1, the 1,3-cyclohexanedione reaction during the post column derivatization method is shown and figure 2 illustrates system flow diagram.
| No.1 : Eluent | No.8 : Pump for reagent (PU-2085) |
| No.2 : Degasser (DG-2080-53) | No.9 : Reaction oven (RO-2061) |
| No.3 : Pump for Eluent (PU-2080) | No.10: Reaction coil |
| No.4 : Autosampler (AS-2057) | No.11: Cooling coil |
| No.5 : Column Oven (CO-2060) | No.12: Fluorescence detector (FP-2020) |
| No.6 : Column (Shodex RSpak KC-811 6E) | No.13: Backpressure coil |
| No.7 : Reagent |
Figure 3 explains the usage of a passive gas tube for collecting the sample in the atmosphere and figure 4 shows the extraction method from the passive gas tube.
Figure 4. Extraction method from passive gas tube
Figure 5 shows a chromatogram of the sample in the laboratory atmosphere collected with the passive gas tube. The calculated concentration of formaldehyde obtained was 0.0054 mg/L.
Featured Products:
-
Compact HPLC
-
SFC-4000 Analytical SFC for routine separation to method development
Analytical SFC
-
ChromNAV 2.0