Impurity analysis of 1,4-dioxane in nonionic surfactants and cosmetics using headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
1,4-Dioxane impurity in nonionic surfactants and cosmetics were analyzed using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Experimental results show that there is no significant difference using SPME-GC and SPME-GC-MS for analysis of 1,4-dioxane in three types of nonionic surfactants at the 95% confidence level. The relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) values of each analytical method were smaller than 3%. The amount of 1,4-dioxane was found to vary from 11.6 +/- 0.3 ppm to 73.5 +/- 0.5 ppm in 30% of nonionic surfactants from manufacturers in Taiwan. These methods were linear over the studied range of 3-150 ppm with correlation coefficients higher than 0.995. The recoveries of 1,4-dioxane for these nonionic surfactants following SPME were all higher than 96 +/- 1% (n = 3). The detection limits of 1,4-dioxane for these nonionic surfactants following SPME were from 0.06 ppm to 0.51 ppm. The experimentally determined level of 1,4-dioxane in cosmetics from manufacturers in Taiwan varied from 4.2 +/- 0.1 ppm to 41.1 +/- 0.6 ppm in 22% of daily used cosmetics following SPME coupled with GC and GC-MS. Conventional solvent extraction takes around 1 h for extraction and reconcentration but SPME takes only around 10 min. SPME provides better analyses of 1,4-dioxane in nonionic surfactants and cosmetics than conventional solvent extraction and head space pretreatments in term of simplicity, speed, precision, detection limit, and solvent consumption.
Fuh
C Bor
CB
Department of Applied Chemistry, National Chi Nan University, 1, University Road, Puli, Nantou 545, Taiwan. cbfuh@ncnu.edu.tw
Lai
M
M
Tsai
H Y
HY
Chang
C M
CM
D002138:Calibration; D003358:Cosmetics / Q000737:chemistry; D004146:Dioxanes / Q000032:analysis*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D012015:Reference Standards; D013501:Surface-Active Agents / Q000737:chemistry*
D003358:Cosmetics; D004146:Dioxanes; D013501:Surface-Active Agents; C025223:1,4-dioxane