Simultaneous electrochemical determination of three sunscreens using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide

This paper proposes a methodology based on electrochemical reduction for the simultaneous determination of three sunscreen agents, namely 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (MBQ, benzophenone-3 (BENZO) and 2-ethylhexyl-4-methoxycinnamate (EHMC) by differential-pulse polarography (DPP). The highest peak currents and optimal separation of reduction peaks were obtained by using a supporting electrolyte consisted of Britton-Robinson buffer-methanol (8:2) solution at pH 4.0 and cationic surfactant 3.0 x 10(-4) mol L-1 cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The methodology was validated using four commercial sunscreen preparation as a sample and the results showed high recovery rates. The efficiency of the proposed methodology was demonstrated by comparing the results obtained by DPP with those obtained by the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.