Development of a gas chromatographic method for the determination of alcohols in hand sanitizers
Presenter(s)
Alexander Gibbs
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to determine which alcohols are present in commonly found hand sanitizers and what their unknown concentrations are. In addition to determining the concentration of alcohol in hand sanitizer, the research performed was implemented as a new piece of curriculum in the instrumental analysis class. This research allowed for the design of a lab that allows students to obtain hands on experience with the GC-FID while learning about its performance and capabilities. The GC-FID was used as the piece of analytical instrumentation for the determination of alcohol concentration in hand sanitizers. This test required the use of internal standards, calculations, dilutions, and proper instrument analysis. The GC-FID was chosen for this research due to its ability to accurately measure highly volatile chemicals at extreme precision. Each alcohol was initially tested alone with the internal standard to determine retention time and to give a known concentration value for an area under the curve. Many adjustments were made to the GC-FID method to obtain the most accurate values. The results show that both of the store-bought hand sanitizers do not meet FDA standards. The amount of ethanol measured in both samples was also less than what was listed on the hand sanitizer container. The Wish Peach Hand Sanitizer was measured at 46.6% ethanol concentration while the package said it contained 70% ethanol. This leads to a percent error of 50.21%. The Symmetry Hand Sanitizer had much more accurate results, the observed value was 59.08% and the package had a concentration of 62%. This yields a percent error of 4.94%. This signifies the accuracy of the method that is being tested. The large reason for error in the Wish Hand Sanitizer would be due to the consistency of the sanitizer. The micropipette struggled to pick up the hand sanitizer making it difficult to accurately quantify.
College
College of Science & Engineering
Department
Chemistry
Campus
Winona
First Advisor/Mentor
Jeanne Franz
Start Date
4-24-2025 1:00 PM
End Date
4-24-2025 2:00 PM
Presentation Type
Poster Session
Format of Presentation or Performance
In-Person
Session
2a=1pm-2pm
Poster Number
17
Development of a gas chromatographic method for the determination of alcohols in hand sanitizers
The purpose of this research was to determine which alcohols are present in commonly found hand sanitizers and what their unknown concentrations are. In addition to determining the concentration of alcohol in hand sanitizer, the research performed was implemented as a new piece of curriculum in the instrumental analysis class. This research allowed for the design of a lab that allows students to obtain hands on experience with the GC-FID while learning about its performance and capabilities. The GC-FID was used as the piece of analytical instrumentation for the determination of alcohol concentration in hand sanitizers. This test required the use of internal standards, calculations, dilutions, and proper instrument analysis. The GC-FID was chosen for this research due to its ability to accurately measure highly volatile chemicals at extreme precision. Each alcohol was initially tested alone with the internal standard to determine retention time and to give a known concentration value for an area under the curve. Many adjustments were made to the GC-FID method to obtain the most accurate values. The results show that both of the store-bought hand sanitizers do not meet FDA standards. The amount of ethanol measured in both samples was also less than what was listed on the hand sanitizer container. The Wish Peach Hand Sanitizer was measured at 46.6% ethanol concentration while the package said it contained 70% ethanol. This leads to a percent error of 50.21%. The Symmetry Hand Sanitizer had much more accurate results, the observed value was 59.08% and the package had a concentration of 62%. This yields a percent error of 4.94%. This signifies the accuracy of the method that is being tested. The large reason for error in the Wish Hand Sanitizer would be due to the consistency of the sanitizer. The micropipette struggled to pick up the hand sanitizer making it difficult to accurately quantify.
Comments
No poster file.