Determination of Tetraalkyllead by High Performance Liquid Chromatography with ICP Detection

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Abstract
The separation of tetramethyllead (TML) and tetraethyllead (TEL) by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and their subsequent detection by inductively coupled plasma emission (ICP) is shown to be a sensitive technique. The choice of mobile solvent in HPLC/ICP is critical, because many of the organic phases commonly used with HPLC easily extinguish the plasma. A study is conducted to select the mobile phase appropriate to achieve an efficient separation with HPLC and sensitive detection with ICP. Ultraviolet detection is initially used to optimize the HPLC conditions. Several mixtures of water and alcohol are studied. The separation is done on reversed-phase columns at various temperatures. For ICP detection, a concentric nebulizer is used. Detection limits of 42 ppb of Pb for TML (2 ng with 50-μl injection) and 212 ppb of Pb for TEL (11 ng with 50-μl injection) are achieved. Samples of regular and unleaded gasoline are analyzed for their TML and TEL content as well as for other organolead compounds.