Determination of triphenyltin and its metabolite diphenyltin in culture medium by high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection

A method for the determination of triphenyltin and diphenyltin was developed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection. Triphenyltin and diphenyltin were separated using a reversed-phase Symmetry C₁₈ column (150 x 3.9 mm, 5 μm) with tetrahydrofuran- water-acetonitrile-glacial acetic acid (13:25:5:7, v/v) containing 0.05% triethylamine and 1.0% sodium acetate as mobile phase at 0.50 mL min ^-1 and detection at 257 nm. The calibration curves were linear from 0.26 μmol L^-1 to 1100 μmol L^-1 for triphenyltin with a correlation coefficient of 0.9999 (n = 12) and from 0.60 μmol L ^-1 to 1200 μmol L^-1 for diphenyltin with a correlation coefficient of 0.9991 (n = 12), respectively. The detection limits of triphenyltin and diphenyltin were 0.2 μmol L^-1, respectively. The method was successfully applied to the determination of triphenyltin and its metabolite diphenyltin in culture medium. The recoveries of triphenyltin and diphenyltin were in the ranges of 97.7% to 103.3% and 85.5% to 91.6%, respectively.