Speciation of phenyltin(IV) compounds using high-performance liquid chromatography: Part 1. The direct analysis of mixed standard solutions of tetraphenyltin, triphenyltin chloride, triphenyltin hydroxide and triphenyltin acetate

A rapid speciation high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of phenyltin compounds. The commercially important products of triphenyltin-chloride, -acetate, -hydroxide and tetraphenyltin were separated by reversed-phase HPLC on a Waters Spherisorb S5W ODS-2 (octadecylsilica) column using an isocratic mixture of 90:10 (v/v) acetonitrile:water as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 1 ml min(-1). The phenyltin compounds were detected by UV detection at 254 nm and the total elution time is 8 min. The elution order is triphenyltin-chloride, -acetate, -hydroxide and tetraphenyltin. Detection limits were 0.01 ppm for each of the triphenyltin compounds and 0.02 ppm for tetraphenyltin. Spiked water samples containing the three biocidal triphenyltin compounds could also be analysed simultaneously by the above method without the need for any prior derivatization, following extraction with toluene. The versatility of the method in sensing substituent group variations on the phenyl ring was also demonstrated by the successful resolution of the hydroxides, tris(p-chlorophenyl)tin hydroxide, diphenyl(p-chlorophenyl)tin hydroxide and triphenyltin hydroxide. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.