Determination of glycerol derivatives by High-performance liquid chromatography

A chromatographic method for the identification of glycerol derivatives, particularly glyceraldehyde, dihydroxyacetone, mesoxalic, tartronic, glycolic and glyceric acids on an ion-exchange 8% crosslinked calcium sulfonated divinylbenzene-styrene resin column was developed and validated. The experiments included a systematic study of the effect of column temperature (60, 70 °C); flow rate (0.2, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.8 mL min) and mobile phase conditions of aqueous H2SO4 (1, 3, 5, and 10 mM) on the separation and quantification of the glycerol oxidation products using isocratic elution with Ultraviolet and Refractometric detectors. Best results were achieved using a flow rate of 0.5 mL min, with 3 mM H2SO4 as mobile phase at 70 °C. The method was validated in terms of intra-day precision, sensitivity, accuracy, and detection and quantification limits. The separation mechanism was studied and the method conditions were applied in the identification of products derived from the chemical oxidation of glycerol. Key-Words: HPLC analysis, glycerol derivatives, chromatographic method, validation, UV detector, RI detector, ionic exchange