A Method for Determination of Migratable Fluorescent Whitening Agents in Paper Products by Dual-Wavelength UV Spectroscopy

The current national standard method GB/T 27741-2011, i. e., "quantitative determination of migratable fluorescent whitening agents-UV spectroscopy", overestimates the migratable fluorescent whitening agents (FWA) in the paper based products because of the spectral interference of the leached lignin from the cellulose fibers. To minimize such interference, a spectroscopic method based on dual-wavelength (305 and 348 nm) measurement was proposed. It was observed that the dual-wavelength spectroscopy can effectively subtract the spectral absorption contributed by the leached lignin in the extraction medium, thus more accurately determination of migratable FWA can be performed. The results showed that the present method has a relative standard deviation of 2. 17%, the quantitative detection limit of 16. 9 mg . kg(-1), and recovery of 98%similar to 103%. Compared with the current alternative standard-HPLC method, the present method possesses advantages of low operation and maintenance costs, simple, and practical in application. Therefore, it is more suitable for the rapid determination of migratable FWA in the product quality control in the production process and sample examination in the commercial market.