Method development for the analysis of phenol in water by capillary electrophoresis using a home-made UV/Vis detector

Abstract

Development of analytical procedure for the determination of phenol in water by the capillary electrophoresis method using a home-made UV/Vis detector combined with the two-stage liquid-liquid extraction has been studied. The procedure was optimized with extraction conditions and analytical conditions. Optimized extraction conditions were determined using the response surface methodology (RSM) in connection with the central composite design (CCD); twenty experiments were conducted to determine the effect of three factors: volume of the solvent 1-octanol, extraction time of the 1st stage and of the 2nd stage. Analytical conditions which were investigated included the background electrolyte solution (borax concentration and pH value), separation voltage and injection time. Quantification limit of the optimized procedure was 8.7 μg/l with the good repeatability of migration time and peak area (RSD<3%). This method was applied to analyse some water samples. Compared with the reference method (HPLC), the deviation of results ranged from 6.4 to 13.1%.