Analysis of aldehydes in water using post-column derivatization by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

It is now a growing concern that aldehydes such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde may pollute air and environmental water in lake, reservoir, river etc. in environment. Therefore, the aldehydes are subjected to regulations by Air Pollution Control, Water Supply and Offensive Odor Control Acts in Japan. Pre-column derivatization with 2,4-DNPH is known as a method to measure aldehydes in HPLC, however, the pretreatment of samples such as collection-condensation or extraction is required. JASCO introduced the method for the analysis of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde in water by post-column fluorescence derivatization using 1,3- Cyclohexanedione as derivatization reagent, which did not require such pretreatment.

In this report, JASCO extended the applicability of the method to other aldehydes by optimizing the derivatization conditions.