UV-Vis Spectrophotometer as an Alternative Technique for the Determination of Hydroquinone in Vinyl Acetate Monomer

Abstract

As an appropriate quantity of hydroquinone (HQ) is essential to safeguard inhibition characteristics by eliminating the risk of self-polymerization of vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), the determination of the HQ content in VAM is very crucial to ensure the stability of VAM during storage and transportation as well as to achieve the possibility of a proper polymerization reaction. In this study, a simple, cheap, time-saving, and easy method has been developed by which the HQ content in VAM can be measured quickly based on the measurement of UV-Vis absorbance of the HQ content at 293 nm using methanol as a blank. No color development is required for this determination process, and the HQ content in the VAM can be measured directly without any further processing. The limit of detection, limit of quantification, linearity range, accuracy, precision, robustness, and measurement uncertainty of this method have been measured and analyzed and found to be within the acceptable limit and range. The method shows linearity within 0.36–25.0 ppm HQ content in the solution range with a regression coefficient of 0.9999, a relative spike recovery of 101.35%, precision of 1.36%, relative bias of 0.55%, and robustness with a temperature variation of −5 °C.