HPLC and GC Methods for Determination of Lubricants and Their Evaluation in Analysis of Real Samples of Polyethylene

Abstract

High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography (GC) are introduced for analysis of polymer lubricants (stearamide, oleamide and erucamide). In the HPLC method, a reverse phase octadecylsilane (ODS) column along with acetonitrile/methanol (60:40) as a mobile phase were used. Detection of analytes was performed by a UV detector at 202 nm. The analysis time was less than 8 min. In the GC method, polar capillary column and flame ionization detector (FID) were used for separations and detection, respectively. The analysis time by GC was longer than HPLC and was about 30 min. Limits of detection, linear range and repeatability of both methods are similar, but determination of oleamide in real samples by HPLC method is difficult due to complexity of the initial part of HPLC chromatogram in polyethylene samples. That problem is not observed in the GC method. Detection limits in both methods for all analytes are lower than 0.003% which are much lower than the amount of lubricants in commercial polymers (0.05–0.2%).