Optimisation of a flow injection system with electrochemical detection using the desirability function: Application to the determination of hydroquinone in cosmetics Original Research Article

A procedure is proposed in which the determination of hydroquinone using a flow injection system with electrochemical detection is described. Size and coefficient of variation of the signal are optimised by a desirability function and a central composite design. The robustness of the optimum reached in the optimisation step is evaluated by means a Plackett–Burman design. The optimised FIA system is able to determine hydroquinone with a minimum detectable net concentration of 10 μg l−1 with a false positive probability of 0.05 and a false negative probability less than 0.05. In samples of bleaching cream, the proposed procedure has a recovery of 102.2% with standard deviation of 4.4% and a relative error of 6.2%.