Derivatization

Definition

Derivatization is the process by which an organic compound is reacted with a reagent, or reagents, to yield products suitable for analyses by various techniques. In many cases the products are either a volatile adduct suitable for analysis by gas chromatography (GC) or a highly fluorescent product that can be separated by liquid chromatography and detected at very low levels (parts-per-billion) by its characteristic fluorescence at an optimal excitation wavelength. In the case of carboxylic acids, the reagents are usually alcohols in the presence of catalysts that convert the original molecules into esters for GC analyses. For the GC determination of amino acids, alcohols in the presence of catalysts are used to first convert the carboxyl groups to esters and reagents such as trifluoroacetic anhydride then used to add components to the primary amino groups to prevent their ionization. For the fluorescent analyses of amino acids, several reagents, such as fluorescamine or ortho...