Determination of chlorinated volatile organic compounds in polyamine epichlorohydrin solution by headspace gas chromatography

- A headspace gas chromatographic (HS-GC) method was developed to determine the chlorinated volatile organic compounds in polyamine epichlorohydrin solution.
- Based on the vapor-liquid phase equilibrium of residual epichlorohydrin (ECH) and the by-product 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol (DCP) in PAE solution, the content of chlorinated volatile organic compounds can be calculated.
- The present method is rapid, automated, practical and suitable to be used for analyzing the product quality control of commercial PAE resin solutions.

This study demonstrated a headspace gas chromatographic (HS-GC) method for the determination of residual epichlorohydrin (ECH) and the by-product 1,3-dichloro-2-propanol (DCP) in polyamine epichlorohydrin (PAE) solution. It was based on the vapor-liquid phase equilibrium of these analytes at 60 °C for 30 min in a closed headspace sample vial before GC measurement. It was found that matrix of the PAE solution had the effect on the headspace equilibrium of these species and therefore a standard addition must be applied in the method validation. The results showed that the present method has a good measurement precision (RSD <2.90%) and accuracy (recoveries from 93.6 to 105%), and the limit of quantitation (LOQ) is 3.75 mg/L for ECH and 0.8 g/L for DCP. The present method is suitable to be used for analyzing the chlorinated volatile organic compounds in the commercial PAE resin solutions.