A method for the determination of ZnDDP in lubricant oils by applying solid-phase extraction with mixed resin

One of the major applications of zinc dialkyldithiophosphates (ZnDDPs) is their usage as an anti-wear additive in lubricants including greases, hydraulic oils, and motor oils. ZnDDPs also could be used as corrosion inhibitors and antioxidants. In this study, GC/MS with solid-phase extraction (SPE) pretreatment was used to effectively remove base oils in lubricants and qualitative and quantitative analysis method for ZnDDPs in automotive lubricants. As a pretreatment method, liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) and SPE were applied. The SPE method using mixed absorbent containing 1.0% of active carbon in silica gel base showed the best results in both recovery and reproducibility. The LOD and LOQ of the developed method were 2.2 µg/ml and 6.7 µg/ml, respectively. And this method showed very good reproducibility of less than 0.1% RSD for the standard sample analysis. The developed method was successively applied to qualitative and quantitative analyses of ZnDDP in various real automotive lubricant samples.