Which analytical technique (s)????

[Chem-Eng]

Hi,


I am working on cardon dioxide reduction and need to identify and quantify the products, I don't know exactly what will be in the reduced solution. But, most probably the solution will contain tiny amounts of :

methanol, formic acid,methane and formaldehyde in aqueous phase, I also expect the reactants to be present in small amounts: The reactants are acetate, KCl and pyridine in deionised water at PH=5.2.

Which analytical technique (s) is suitable in this case to both identify and quantify the mentionable compounds? Do I need to

Can anyone help me with this please?

Thank you in advance.

[AICMM]

Chem-Eng,

Not much help here but no one else is taking a crack at it.... I look at your list of compounds and the thing that makes me wince is the fact that it is in water. Any possibility you can catch these things in the gas phase? Once you put this stuff in water they really don't want to leave and go anywhere useful.

Like I said, not much help, sorry.

Best regards,

AICMM

[Don_Hilton]

It seems that I have seen a very similar question posted on this forum and a suggestion of several techniques offered which included headspace GC for methane and methanol, ion chromatography for formic acid and acetate,and reaction with a reagent suitable for formaldehyde and determination - wich may have been colorometric or by LC.

If your reaction products are unknown to you before you start - it becomes a bit trickier. Headspace GC with MS could help identifiy less polar volatiles.