Determination of degradation products in tributyl phosphate using 31P Fourier transform NMR spectrometry

Abstract

Dibutyl phosphate (DBP) in tributyl phosphate (TBP) was determined by ³¹P FT-NMR. Adoption of gated ¹H decoupling and pyridine as a solvent provided good peak separation. With a 120-s pulse waiting time to achieve sufficient relaxation of the system, dibutyl phosphate contents could be determined directly from peak-area ratios with a 2% error for 20 accumulation times (1DBP/TBP0.05) or a 10% error for 1000 accumulation times (0.05>DBP/TBP8×10^–4).