Fractionation of technical p-nonylphenol with preparative capillary gas chromatography

A fractionation procedure for technical p-nonylphenol using preparative capillary gas chromatography (pcGC) was developed and evaluated for its potential applicability in effect-directed analysis (EDA). The instrument is composed of (1) a preparative unit equipped with a cold injection system (CIS), two preparative fraction collectors (PFCs) with six fraction traps each, and a flame ionization detector (FID) and (2) an analytical unit sharing the same GC oven and equipped with another CIS and mass spectrometric detection (MSD) for isomer identification. The pcGC methodology used in this study is characterized by a high reproducibility of retention times and peak areas. This provides the fractionation of nonylphenol isomers into 11 fractions containing 77–552 μg of isomers collected after 600 single injections. This yield is sufficient to allow subsequent biotesting in the E-screen assay.