Development and validation of a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatographic method for determination of aromatic amines in environmental water

A simple, precise, and accurate hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatographic (HILIC) method has been developed for the determination of five aromatic amines in environmental water samples. Chromatography was carried out on a bare silica column, using a mixture of acetonitrile and a buffer of NaH2PO4–H3PO4 (pH 1.5, containing 10 mM NaH2PO4) (85:15, v/v) as a mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 mL min−1. Aromatic amines were detected by UV absorbance at 254 nm. The linear range of amines was good (r2 > 0.998) and limit of detection (LOD) within 0.02–0.2 mg L−1 (S/N = 3). The retention mechanism for the analytes under the optimum conditions was determined to be a combination of adsorption, partition and ionic interactions. The proposed method was applied to the environmental water samples. Aromatic amines were isolated from aqueous samples using solid-phase extraction (SPE) with Oasis HLB cartridges. Recoveries of greater than 75% with precision (RSD) less than 12% were obtained at amine concentrations of 5–50 μg L−1 from 100 mL river water and influents from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The present HILIC technique proved to be a viable method for the analysis of aromatic amines in the environmental water samples.