Determination of polyoxyethylene in small amounts of non-ionic detergents by hydrogen bromide fission followed by gas chromatography

Abstract

A procedure is described for determining the polyoxyethylene content of samples of ethoxylated materials in the range of 50–500 µg, such as those extracted from biodegradability tests on non-ionic detergents, surface waters, effluents or other media containing these species at very low concentrations. The method, which is an adaptation of the hydrogen bromide fission-gas-chromatographic method for determining the oxyalkylene ratio in copolymers, is applicable to materials that have short polyoxyethylene chains in addition to those in the typical non-ionic detergent range.