Pre-column chelation with 8-hydroxyquinoline for the simultaneous determination of metal ions by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

The use of 8-hydroxyquinoline as a pre-column chelating agent for liquid chromatographic multi-element determinations has been evaluated using a conventional reversed-phase HPLC system. Several organic solvents were checked as modifiers of aqueous mobile phases in order to vary as much as possible the selectivity of the system. Fixed-wavelength UV absorption was employed for the detection of chelates. The investigation showed that the separation and determination of metal ions such as Zn^II, Al^III, Co^III, Cr^III, Cu^II, Ga^III, In^III and Fe^III as 8-hydroxyquinoline complexes at the parts per 10⁹ level is feasible.