Determination of homologues of quaternary ammonium surfactants by capillary electrophoresis using indirect UV detection

This investigation describes the simultaneous separation of two major non-chromophoric quaternary ammonium surfactants, alkyltrimethyl- and dialkyldimethylammonium compounds (ATMACs and DADMACs, respectively), by capillary electrophoresis (CE) using indirect UV detection. The most effective separation conditions was 10 mM phosphate buffer with 57.5% tetrahydrofuran and 3 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) at pH 4.3, and the sample hydrodynamic injection of up to 20 s at 1 psi (approximately 60 nl), and an applied voltage of 25 kV (1 psi=6.9 kPa). Specially, the selection of an appropriate chromophore and an internal standard (I.S.) to improve the peak identification and quantitation was systematically investigated. Decylbenzyldimethyl ammonium chloride (C10-BDMA+C−) as a chromophore with 3 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate provided the best detectability for all homologues. The reproducibility of the migration time and quantitative analysis can be improved by using tetraoctyl ammonium ion as an internal standard, giving the relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) less than 0.8% for the relative migration times, and 2.5–5.5% for the relative peak areas. A good linearity of CE analysis was obtained in the range of 1.0–20 μg/ml with r2 values of above 0.999. The analysis of cationic surfactants in commercial products of hair conditioners and fabric softeners was also performed. Electrospray mass spectrometric method was applied to evaluate the CE method, and the compatible results were obtained.