Ethylene chlorohydrin determination in ethylene oxide sterilized polyvinyl chloride tubing.

A convenient rapid gas-chromatographic method is described for the quantitative determination of ethylene chlorohydrin. The method reported herein extracts the ethylene chlorohydrin with water. The method is simple and offers advantages since no elaborate and expensive gas extraction apparatus is required. The ethylene chlorohydrin levels in five different sterilized polyvinyl chloride samples were found to vary between 5 and 25 ppm. The effect of resterilization with ethylene oxide was investigated and was found to produce less ethylene chlorohydrin.