Determination of Aromatic Aldehydes by High Performance Liquid Chromatography after Precolumn Fluorescent Derivatization with 4, 5-Dimethyl-o-phenylenediamine

Abstract

A new sensitive method for the determination of aromatic aldehydes (benzaldehyde, o-, m- and p-hydroxybenzaldehydes and vanillin) is described which employs high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorometric detection. Aromatic aldehydes were derivatized with 4, 5-dimethyl-o-phenylenediamine (DMPD) in an acidic medium, and the resultant fluorescent benzimidazole derivatives were separated on a reversed phase column (Zorbax ODS) with 0.02M acetate buffer(pH 4.0)-methanol(1:1) containing 5mmol 1^-1 n-dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide as a mobile phase. The detection limits of aromatic aldehydes were in the range from 0.05 to 2.5 ng ml^-1. This method was applied to the determination of vanillin in commercial ice cream.