Simultaneous determination of positional isomers of benzenediols by capillary zone electrophoresis with square wave amperometric detection

A capillary zone electrophoresis method coupling square wave amperometric detection (SWAD) for the simultaneous determination of positional isomers of benzendiols (i.e. o-, m-, p-benzenediols) has been developed. Effects of several factors, such as the composition of the running buffer, the pH value, separation voltage, injection time and the potential applied to the working electrode, were investigated to acquire the optimum conditions. The efficacy of the boric acid and ascorbic acid in the running buffer were discussed. o-, m-, p-Benzendiols can be well separated within 8 min in a 50 cm length of 50 μm diameter fused-silica capillary at a separation voltage of +15 kV. Operated in a wall-jet configuration, a 100 μm Pt-disk electrode used as the working electrode exhibits good response for the analytes. The relation between peak current and analyte concentration was linear over two orders of magnitude with detection limits (S/N = 3) ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 μM for all analytes. The proposed method has been successfully applied to monitor the o-, m-, p-benzendiols contents in the environmental wastewater samples with satisfactory assay results.