High performance liquid chromatographie analysis of intact and partially biodegraded linear alkylbenzene sulfonates

Abstract

A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the determination of intact and partially degraded linear alkyl‐benzene sulfonate (LAS) was developed. The LAS degradation products resulting from a semicontinuous activated sludge (SCAS), a die‐away CO2 and a simulated river die‐away study were quanti‐tatively determined by HPLC equipped with a reversed‐phase column using a tetrahydrofuran/water/Pic A solution as the mobile phase. The column effluent was monitored with a fluorescence spectrophotometer that was operated at an excitation wavelength of 232 nm and an emission wavelength of 290. Compounds investi‐gated included both single‐and mixed‐carbon‐range materials. The HPLC method shows good correlations with MBAS for intact LAS material. The most significant advantage of this method over MBAS is it ability to quantitatively determine partially degraded intermediates and the disappearance of those intermediates. This method, when using the fluorescence detection system, is selective for sulfonated ring structures with more than one alkyl carbon. The sensitivity of the method is in the 0.05‐ppm range. It can be used not only for samples from laboratory experiments but also for sewage plant influents, effluents and river waters.

Development of a method by HPLC to determine LAS and its application in anaerobic reactors

“…33 Excellent separations of the peaks of homologues of LAS were obtained from the usage of the C-8 column as the stationary phase and the LAS homologues were separated with high resolution, with retention times of 14, 17, 20 and 23 minutes for peaks 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively and all the isomers of each LAS homologue co-elutes into a single peak, 16 facilitating the interpretation of the chromatogram. These obtained results were the opposite of those obtained with the C-18 column, 15,[33][34][35] where the LAS homologues cannot be separated as different peaks.…”

“…35 It was possible to correlate the area of each peak with the known concentration of each standard in order to establish the exact concentration of each one of the four main peaks present in the chromatogram and perform individually the calibration of the curves (Table 3). …”

Environmental monitoring for linear alkylbenzene sulfonates, dialkyltetralin sulfonates and their biodegradation intermediates

“…High-performance liquid chromatographic techniques have also been used in the detection of LASI in microcosm and laboratory biodegradation studies [10,11]. The HPLC techniques with either fluorescence detection [13,14] or UV detection [10,11] cannot analyze environmental samples selectively for DATS due to coelution of LAS and DATS.…”

“…(g/L) concentrations of LAS, LAS biodegradation intermediates (LASI), DATS, and DATS biodegradation intermediates (DATSI) in environmental samples. The earlier desulfonation, derivatization, and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods did not have the necessary selectivity and sensitivity [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. This new methodology was used to measure LAS, LASI, DATS, and DATSI in samples of 10 of the 50 sites evaluated in the McAvoy et al [3] study.…”

Levels Of Linear Alkylbenzenesulfonates (LAS) In Sediments Of The Berre Lagoon (FRANCE)

“…In the early 1960s, linear alkylbenzenesulfonates (LAS) became the major anionic surfactant used in domestic and industrial detergents, and have maintained that status to the present [1]. Due to their high volume used in consumer products, LAS represent a class of environmentally important compounds, which have the potentiality to be toxic towards aquatic organisms and may cause damages to littoral and marine ecosystems [2][3][4].…”