Identification and quantification of polycarboxylates in detergent products using off-line size exclusion chromatography–nuclear magnetic resonance Original Research Article

The performance of many contemporary detergent products critically depends on polymers. Water-soluble polycarboxylates represent an important class of detergent polymers, and their quantitative assessment in detergent matrices stands as a considerable challenge. The presence of high levels of surfactants is a major complication, due to the strong tendency of surfactants to form micelles and to interact with the polymers. First, we addressed critical steps in the subsequent combined use of liquid extraction and off-line size exclusion chromatography–nuclear magnetic resonance (SEC–NMR) for identification and quantification of polycarboxylates in detergent products. Next, the different steps in the off-line SEC–NMR procedure were optimized with respect to precision and accuracy. This resulted in recoveries of more than 80% for maleic acid/acrylic acid copolymers; in detergent products a proportional bias of 30% is achieved. The method showed good precision with a relative standard deviation of within-laboratory reproducibility between 5% and 14%.