SEPARATION AND DETERMINATION OF ORGANOGERMANIUM COMPOUNDS BY ION CHROMATOGRAPHY

For nearly three decades, organogermanium compounds have become increa singly of interest owing to their extensive physiological and pharmace utical activity. In this paper, two new high performance ion chromatog raphic methods for separation and determination of three kinds of orga nogermanium compounds beta-carboxyethylgermanium sesquioxide (I), beta -(alpha-methyl)-carboxyethylgermanium sesquioxide (II) and d-(beta-car boxyethyl)germanium hydroxide (III) were proposed. A Dionex DX-300 ion chromatograph equipped with a Dionex FED-II pulsed electrochemical de tector (conductivity mode), and a Dionex AI-450 chromatography worksta tion was employed. The separation was achieved by using ion-exchange o r ion-exclusion mechanism. The detection limits(S/N=3, expressed as ge rmanium) for the three compounds were all below sub- mu g/mL level. Th e methods have been applied to the analysis of tonic oral drinks, and the average recoveries for the three compounds range from 95 - 108%. T he results obtained were in agreement with those of hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HG-AFS).