Simultaneous determination of the urinary metabolites of toluene, xylene and styrene using high-performance capillary electrophoresis - Comparison with high-performance liquid chromatography

A simple and rapid method using high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) far the simultaneous determination of the urinary metabolites of tol uene, xylene and styrene, plus creatinine and uric acid in human urine spec imens and standard solutions is described. The compounds were well separate d from each other on a fused-silica capillary utilizing a 20 mM sodium tetr aborate buffer (pH 9.65) with 15 mM beta-cyclodextrin and UV detection at 2 00 and 225 nm. The total analysis time was less than 6 min per sample. The capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method shows a good correlation with t he high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with respect to uri nary hippuric acid concentrations in the urine specimens of subjects expose d to the vapors of a solvent mixture of toluene and xylene. In comparing th ese two techniques, HPCE was found to be superior to HPLC because the analy sis time is shorter, and the separation of m-MHA and p-MHA takes a long tim e with HPLC. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science BN. All rights reserved.