[Ch-Eng]

Hi there,


I am working on cardon dioxide reduction and need to identify and quantify the products, I don't know exactly what will be in the reduced solution. But, most probably the solution will contain tiny amounts of :

methanol, formic acid,methane and formaldehyde in aqueous phase, I also expect the reactants to be present in small amounts: The reactants are acetate, KCl and pyridine in deionised water at PH=5.2.

Which analytical technique (s) is suitable in this case to both identify and quantify the mentionable compounds? Do I need to 

Can anyone help me with this please?

Thank you in advance.

[Stepan]

GC FID will work for MeOH, and Methane, IC for formic acid, and HPLC UV for formaldehyde.

[Ch-Eng]

Thanks Stepan,

How can I introduce formic acid into IC, I thought it may destroy the column, no? The other thing is I have all these mixed in one aqueous solution so if I introduce it into the HPLC to analyse the aldehyde the acide again may destroy the HPLC column. The same will happen when I untroduce the solution into GC to analyse methanol, is that right? Or is the fact the analytes will be in traces amounts will not affect the instruments???

Thanks again 

[Stepan]

I was under impression that you need to detect trace amount of your components in solution. At the level of up to 1% they will have no effect on the IC and HPLC columns.  If your concentrations are high you can use different analytical techniques or dilute your solution. By the way, you need to derivatize formaldehyde with DNPH to detect it on HPLC-UV.