Determination of formaldehyde in spirits by high-performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection after derivatization

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with diode-array detection (DAD) to identify and quantify formaldehyde (FA) in spirits is described. Formaldehyde was quantified with DAD after derivatization with ethyl 3-oxobutanoate and ammonia to yield the diethyl 2,6-dimethyl-1,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate. The response of the detection system was linear within the range of 0.25– 2.00 (mu)g/ml with a correlation coefficient of 0.9998. The average formaldehyde concentration in the samples ranged between 0.27 and 3.01 mg/l. The coefficient of variation was lower than 4.84% and recoveries ranged from 93.4 to 100.4%. Purity of formaldehyde derivative peak was confirmed by spectral data.