HPLC analysis of Formaldehyde

[chemie1]

HELP..Please. I am new to HPLC analysis. We are not allowed to use acetonitrile in our lab outside a hood. Yet, we need to run formaldehyde via HPLC. All the methods I have found use acetonitrile as the mobile phase. Does anyone know of a method that uses methanol? Could I adapt one of the other methods I found to use methanol? What would that entail aand what problems might I encounter? We are working with surfactants.

Thanks

[yangz00g]

I don't see any big problem to use methanol to replace ACN, expect that the method uses a UV at a low wavelength.

[Uwe Neue]

what happens to formaldehyde when you add methanol?

[juddc]

Are you using 2,4-DNPH to derivatize the formaldehyde? If so, I might expect a slightly higher background in your blanks due to trace quantities of formaldehyde in your methanol. I would also expect this to be pretty minor as long as you're working with freshly opened methanol of a suitable purity. Give it a try; it should be easy enough to determine whether MeOH will be a problem by running an experiment or two.

[Consumer Products Guy]

Your lab has HPLCs, but someone won't let you use ACN unless under a hood? Can you place the waste reservoir in a fume hood and satisy that? I mean, if you play HPLC without using ACN, you're playing one-handed.

If your safety person finds out that DNPH is way more hazardous, then you won't be able to use either.

Another example of management wanting chemistry done without chemicals....

[bisnettrj2]

http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/testmetho ... /8315a.pdf

Running at 360 nm, as per EPA 8315, should allow you to run methanol instead of ACN, esp. if formaldehyde is your only analyte of interest, as you're so far above the UV-cutoff for either solvent to really matter anymore. I agree with CPG though - unless there's some really odd/important reason that ACN can't be in the same room as the rest of your lab, not being able to use it in a mobile phase is pretty silly.

[Bryan Evans]

Below is formaldehyde-DNPH injected on to Cadenza CD-C18 (360nm detection):

http://www.imtaktusa.com/site_media/fil ... TI019E.pdf
http://www.imtaktusa.com/site_media/fil ... TI020E.pdf
http://www.imtaktusa.com/site_media/fil ... TI046E.pdf

[mbicking]

I developed the original 8315 method for EPA, and as I recall we used methanol in the mobile phase without problems. However, the comment about formaldehyde impurities in methanol is a valid concern. You should try to avoid contact with methanol during sample preparation if possible. Also, analyze blanks at regular intervals, as formaldehyde in the laboratory can come from many sources.

[chemie1]

To all who responded -

I appreciate all the input. I am not sure why we can not use ACN outside the hood. I have already asked about just putting the waste containers in the hood. I was told that it was not an acceptable solution. All solvent reservoirs would need to be in the hood as well as an potential sources of leakage. Due to the configuration of our system, that would require everything but the detector to be place in the hood. This seemed odd to me because I have seen HPLCs not in a hood and ACN seems to be the phase of choice in HPLC analysis.

K