Determination of N-nitrosodiethanolamine in trolamine by GC-FID method

Abstract

This study investigated the possibility of determination of N-nitrosodiethanolamine in triethanolamine by GC-FID methods. Triethanolamine is a component of many pharmaceuticals, including Lamiderm and Ketoprofen. According to the 5th European Pharmacopoeia, the maximum permissible concentration of N-nitrosodiethanolamine is 25 ppb. N-nitrosodiethanolamine is characterized by high volatility and low concentration in real samples. Thus, vacuum distillation was applied for the preconcentration of an analyte. Chromatographic separation was performed using a J&W Scientific DB-WAX (30 m x 0.251 mm; DF = 0.25 µm) capillary column. The method was linear from 8 ppb to 1 ppm (R2 = 0.9995). According to the definition of the International Union of Pure Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the detection limit (S/N = 3) of the present method for N-nitrosodiethanolamine is 7 ppm. The proposed GC-FID method is an efficient method for the separation and quantitative determination of N-nitrosodiethanolamine