I am looking for an analytical procedure to determine the concentration of some quaternary ammonium salts in a solution with GC-MS. I was adviced to search for that in the NIST databse. Unfortunately I don't have access to it. Can anyone with that access tell me if there are any spectra or analytical procedures available for the salt didecyldimethylammonium chloride or any other similar in structure substance? I would be grateful for help
Many of the "Quats" will break down in the hot injection port to give multiple peaks, mainly tertiary amines and chloroalkanes. So you can expect dimethyl decyl amine, methyl didecyl amine, and chlorodecane. I have never seen any quaternary ammonium compound elute intact on GC.
Benzalkonium chloride (one of the best-known quats) has a related structure and is a good example to use as a search term. The spectra of its breakdown products are shown in the Pfleger-Maurer-Weber database (sorry, but it's not available free on the web). I've verified these breakdown peaks with some reference standards (not just by library search or retention index).
For years I've been looking for ways to quantitate quats, but don't have access to LC-MS. There is some kind of titration method which is relatively simple, if your solution doesn't contain many interferences. Hope that helps (although probably not what you wanted to hear). Dan