Determination of iminodiacetic acid and glycine in dehydrogenation products of diethanolamine by pre-column derivatization and high performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

An analytical method was developed for the determination of iminodiacetic acid (IDA) and glycine (Gly), the dehydrogenation products of diethanolamine, by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled with pre-column derivatization using p-toluenesulfonyl chloride (PTSC) as the derivatization reagent. IDA and Gly reacted with PTSC in the alkaline environment (pH 11) under 45℃ for 15 min. Then the derivatization products were analyzed by HPLC-MS. The separation was carried out on a high performance liquid chromatograph equipped with an ultraviolet detector. A VP-ODS column (200 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) was employed using 0.03 mol/L ammonium acetate (pH 5.5)-acetonitrile (87:13, v/v) as mobile phases for isocratic elution at a flow rate of 1 mL/min and detection wavelength of 235 nm. The results showed good linearities for iminodiacetic acid of 900-2100 mg/L, and for glycine of 20-100 mg/L, respectively. The linear correlation coefficients (R2) were both greater than 0.999. The limits of detection (LODs) of IDA and Gly were 0.0897 mg/L and 0.0262 mg/L and the recoveries were in the range of 98.7%-99.3% and 98.0%-99.5%, respectively. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of IDA and Gly were in the range of 0.89%-1.23% and 0.95%-1.11% (n=3). The method has the characteristics of mild reaction conditions and high accuracy, and is well suitable for the determination of IDA and Gly in industrial production.