Determination of aliphatic amines by high-performance liquid chromatography-amperometric detection after derivatization with naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde

A simple and sensitive liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the determination of low molecular weight aliphatic amines after their pre-column derivatization with naphthalene-2,3-dicarboxaldehyde (NDA). Derivatization conditions, including the NDA concentration, reaction pH and reaction time have been investigated for method optimization. The chromatographic separation of five amines was performed on ABZ PLUS column using mobile phase of methanol–water (80:20, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.2 mL min−1. The detection was carried out with a 6 mm glassy carbon electrode at the applied potential of 0.7 V versus Ag/AgCl reference electrode. The detection limits were between 23.3 and 34.4 nmol L−1 of amines with a sample injection volume of 2 μL. The present method was applied for the determination of aliphatic amines in lake water. The recovery ranged 52.2–127.9%. The RSD in analytes retention time was less than 0.3% and 2.4% for intra- and inter-day analyses, respectively. The RSD in peak area was below 5.8% for both intra-day and inter-day analyses. The total analysis was completed within 20 min.