Improvements in the gas chromatographic determination of trace amounts of aliphatic amines in aqueous solution

Abstract The analysis of aliphatic amines at the parts per million level in aqueous solution has been improved with respect to a previously reported chromatographic method which made use of Carbopack B modified with 0.8% potassium hydroxide and 4% PEG 20M by altering these concentrations to 0.3% and 4.8%, respectively, by using a modified coating procedure. By this means, difficulties in duplicating from batch to batch the chromatographic characteristics of the column packing have been eliminated, and the instability of the retention times of amines on prolonged use of the column, the intolerance of the packing to injections of water and overlapping of tailed peaks for alcohols with the amine peaks no longer affect the trace determination of amines.