Identification of an anti-bacterial agent in toothpaste via liquid chromatography Fourier transform infrared spectrometry mobile phase elimination

Triclosan, an anti-bacterial agent in many cosmetic products, was determined in toothpaste using liquid chromatography (LC) for separation and mobile phase elimination Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR) for identification. The accuracy of this method was measured by comparing the spectrum of the isolated triclosan from the toothpaste matrix with a standard spectrum of triclosan previously placed in our FT-IR library. Under optimized chromatographic and spectrometric conditions, matches of real spectra with library spectra were acceptable. A day-to-day reproducibility study was also conducted in order to verify that acceptable matches could be achieved over a longer time frame. Several factors including disk rotation rate and the effect of limiting the spectral search region were investigated.