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.