CONFIRMATION OF PARA-NITROPHENOL AS A HUMAN URINARY METABOLITE AT THE NANOGRAM LEVEL

A process is described for confirmation of the presence of paranitrophenol as a human urinary metabolite.Paranitrophenol is determined as p-ethoxynitrobenzene (Shafik et al., 1973). An extract containing p-ethoxynitrobenzene in benzene or hexane is reduced with aqueous chromous chloride to p-phenetidine, which is then converted to the amide by reacting with heptafluorobutyric anhydride. Heptafluoro-butryl-p-phenetide is determined by gas chromatographic separation on an OV-1 column using a 63Ni detector. The method was applied to urine samples known to contain PNP and to urine samples determined to have PNP present at 10 ppb concentration or more. All tests confirmed the presence of PNP. © 1979, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.