Formaldehyde is widely known as a toxic chemical, and the guideline value of 0.9 mg/L for its content in drinking water has been established by WHO. This note describes a determination method for formaldehyde in beer using HPLC equipped with a post-column derivatization system.
Formaldehyde in injected solution is separated from other compounds in the ODS column, reacted with acetylacetone solution, and converted to fluorescent 3,5-diacetyl-1,4-dihydrolutidine.
Concentration of one-tenth of the guideline value of formaldehyde was determined with a UV/VIS detector in the HPLC system. Furthermore, florescence (FL) detector provided even higher sensitivity.