Abstract:
An ion pair reversed phase High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of benzalkonium chloride (BAC) homologues, dodecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (C
12), tetradecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (C
14) and cetyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (C
16), in complex chemical disinfectant. Separation was carried out on Platisil ODS column (5 μm, 250 mm×4.6 mm), using methanol and 200 mmol/L hexane sulfonate sodium aqueous solution consisting of 1% triethylamine (
V/V), adjusted with perchloric acid to pH 6.0 (85∶15,
V/V) as the mobile phase in an isocratic elution. The detection wavelength was 220 nm. In the experiment, sodium hexanesulfonate was used as the ion-pair reagent to enhance the retention of benzalkonium chloride, and triethylamine was used as the tailing-suppressor to restrain the adsorption of benzalkonium chloride to the residual silanols on the stationary phase surface. Calibration curves for C
12, C
14 and C
16 were linear in the range of 0.002-5 mg/mL, 0.005-10 mg/mL and 0.005-10 mg/mL, with the limits of quantifications (LOQs) being 0.0005, 0.001 and 0.001 mg/mL, respectively. The method presents excellent accuracy and satisfactory precision, and it has a significant advantage in the detection of low content samples. The average recoveries were in the range of 99.3%-104.1%, and the intra- and inter-day relative standard deviations (RSDs) were not more than 2.0% for the determined compounds in benzalkonium chloride disinfectant and benzalkonium chloride towelette.