Simple determination of o-phenylphenol in skin lotion by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection after pre-column derivatization with 4-(N-chloroformylmethyl-N-methylamino)-7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole.

o-Phenylphenol (OPP) in skin lotion was quantitated by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection after pre-column derivatization with 4-(N-chloroformylmethyl-N-methylamino)-7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole (NBD-COCl) in borate buffer (pH 8.5) at room temperature for 2 min. The column [150 mm x 3.0 mm internal diameter (i.d.)], which contained 5 μm particles of C18 packing material, was eluted at room temperature (flow rate: 0.5 ml/min) with mobile phase prepared by addition of acetonitrile (550 ml) to 450 ml of Milli-Q water containing trifluoroacetic acid (0.1 v/v%). 2-Hydroxyfluorene was used as an internal standard. The retention times of NBD-CO-OPP and NBD-CO-IS derivatives were 16.2 and 22.2 min, respectively. The calibration plot was linear in the range of 0.01-0.2 μg/ml with an r2 value of 0.9960, and the lower limit of detection was 0.003 μg/ml (at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1; absolute amount of 12 pg/20 μl injection). The coefficient of variation was less than 8.8%. Contents of OPP in three skin lotions were determined with the present system, and the recovery from spiked samples was satisfactory.