Determination of phenolic disinfectants in consumer products by capillary electrophoresis with amperometric detection

Numerous disinfection products are widely used in daily life to kill pathogenic microorganisms. However, most disinfectants are organic compounds that might be hazardous to the environment and humans when used excessively. Phenolic disinfectants in disinfection products are investigated using a high-performance capillary electrophoresis-amperometric detection method. Under the optimum conditions, five commonly used disinfectants can be well-separated within 19 min at the separation voltage of 18 kV in a 80 mmol/L borax running buffer (pH 9.2), and adequate extraction was obtained with ethanol for the determination of the five compounds. Satisfactory recovery (93.5-106.0%), intra-day repeatability of the peak current (< 2.9%), and detection limits (1.6 x 10(-7) - 3.8 x 10(-8) g/mL) for the method are achieved. This proposed procedure is successfully used to analyze different samples of disinfection products.