HPLC Determination of Formaldehyde in Adhesives with Vacuum Distillation and Precolumn Derivatization

A method of HPLC with vacaum distillation and precolumn derivatization was proposed for the determination of formaldehyde in adhesives. Agilent Eclipse XDBC18 chromatographic column was used as stationary phase, and a mixture of acetonitrile and water (40+60) was used as mobile phase. DAD and scanning in the wavelength range from 250 nm to 500 nm were adopted in the determination. Linear relationship between values of peak area and mass concentration of formaldehyde was kept in the range within 1.0 mg·L-1, with detection limit (3S/N) of 1.2 mg·kg-1. Values of recovery found by standard addition method were in the range of 88.8%-98.6%, and values of RSD′s (n=6) less than 4.3%. As compared with the method of GB standard, lower temperature was used in the separation by distillation and an effective differentiation between formaldehyde and other carbonyl compounds were attained and hence better accuracy was obtained by the present method.