Methyl acetoacetate derivatisation for improving liquid chromatography analysis of short chain aldehydes and water sensitive and chiral aldehydes

The importance of aldehydes in a number of industries has been well established, and therefore there is a resulting need to effectively and accurately monitor them. We report the application of a methyl acetoacetate derivatisation reaction to enable the analysis of aldehydes by HPLC-UV. This derivatisation reaction has been compared to alternative derivatisation reactions with nitrophenylhydrazines, resulting preferable since it yielded a more intense signal of the compound of interest and less interfering peaks. The derivatisation reaction was then optimised and applied for the analysis of short chained aldehydes such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, propionaldehyde, butyraldehyde and isobutyraldehyde, investigating parameters such as sensitivity, linearity, accuracy, and precision. This strategy has been successfully deployed also for determination of formaldehyde in a 25% w/w sodium methoxide solution in methanol at a target level of 200 ppm. Finally, this derivatisation reaction has been adjusted to enable the development of a robust chiral analytical method for a water sensitive aldehyde.