IDENTIFICATION OF AN ANTIBACTERIAL AGENT IN TOOTHPASTE VIA LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED SPECTROMETRY MOBILE-PHASE ELIMINATION

Triclosan, an anti-bacterial agent in many cosmetic products, was dete rmined in toothpaste using liquid chromatography (LC) for separation a nd mobile phase elimination Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (F T-IR) for identification. The accuracy of this method was measured by comparing the spectrum of the isolated triclosan from the toothpaste m atrix with a standard spectrum of triclosan previously placed in our F T-IR library. Under optimized chromatographic and spectrometric condit ions, matches of real spectra with library spectra were acceptable. A day-to-day reproducibility study was also conducted in order to verify that acceptable matches could be achieved over a longer time frame. S everal factors including disk rotation rate and the effect of limiting the spectral search region were investigated.