Determination of trace heterocyclic amines in water as their 1,2-naphthoquinone derivatives by high performance liquid chromatography.

Abstract

A high performance liquid chromatographic(HPLC) determination of pyrrolidine, piperidine, and morpholine in water at μg/l level has been developed. These heterocyclic amines are converted to their 1, 2-naphthoquinone derivatives by pre-column derivatization with potassium 1, 2-naphthoquinone-4-sulfonate. The derivatives are extracted into dichloromethane, concentrated, and determined by a HPLC system equipped with a photometer set at 436nm. This proposed method is simple, sensitive, and selective for detection of trace amounts of amines in water. The calibration curves of amines were linear up to 100μg/l. The precision of the method is 0.9 to 4.7% for the analysis of water at the 10μg/l level. By this method, piperidine was detected at 0.4μg/l in an effluent of a biological wastewater treatment plant.