Abstract

A good, rapid and simple method has been developed to determine di(2- ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) in standard flour with reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography. The method consist of an extraction as sample preparation followed by an isocratic HPLC-method in which DEHP is quantitated by use of an internal standard. The recovery of the phthalate from the flour is high (>95%). This aspect, in combination with the linearity of the calibration curve, allows an accurate determination of DEHP. The determination is very fast due to the short time of analysis: the peaks of the matrix, the internal standard and DEHP appear within 5 minutes. The developed method has been applied to samples of flour used in a toxicity study with DEHP as testcompound (TOS-TOX-90-41). The measured amounts of DEHP in the flour are in good agreement with the amounts added.