Determination of triorganotin compounds by ion chromatography and capillary electrophoresis with preconcentration using solid-phase extraction

Procedures for the determination of triorganotins using HPLC with a cation-exchange column and capillary electrophoresis (CE) were optimized. In both cases indirect UV detection for trimethyl-, triethyl- and tributyltin and direct UV sensing of triphenyltin were applied. In CE the best separation of tributyl- and triphenyltin was obtained with the use of tartaric acid in the electrolyte. With both procedures a comparable analysis time was found, whereas a better separation of analytes and much lower detection limits were obtained for CE determination. Among five different commercial non-polar sorbents examined for solid-phase extraction of TBT and TPT, the best results were obtained with XAD-2.