A system for determining optical brighteners in laundry detergents by TLC and HPLC

Twenty‐three optical brighteners have been separated on a thin‐layer chromatographic (TLC) system and a high‐performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) system. These systems can be used to identify and quantitate optical brighteners in laundry detergents. The TLC system uses four solvent‐absorbent combinations. The HPLC system uses a C 8 column and a binary solvent gradient program to separate the optical brighteners.