Trace analysis of surfactants using chromatographic and electrophoretic techniques

Because of the widespread use, increased application of new formulations an d immense impact on organisms and ecology surfactants are still in the focu s of analytical chemistry. The development of methods with higher selectivi ty and lower detection limits is important to meet the requirements of grea ter responsibility for health of people and environment. Efficient separati on methods, like HPLC, GC and CE, in combination with sensitive detection, like MS, are to be preferred over collective techniques which can suffer fr om interfering components. A review on trace analysis of ionic and neutral surfactants including sample preparation steps is presented, considering es pecially those methods which provide information about homologous and isome ric distribution of surfactant mixtures. Examples for the determination of linear alkylbenzene sulfonates in river water by HPLC and CE are discussed to show the capability of these methods for environmental analyses. As futu re trends increased applications of LC/MS (very high sensitivity) and also of CE (robustness and possibility for rapid method development) can be pred icted.