A comparative study for UV filter determination: HPLC- PDA, HPLC-MS/MS and a new portable voltammetry device

The determination of UV filters (UVFs) in cosmetic products is of increasing interest, both for compliance with European legislation and for monitoring their environmental impact. At present, the reference methods are based on liquid chromatography, which guarantees high sensitivity and accuracy but is not suitable for on-site analysis. In this study, an electrochemical methodology based on square wave voltammetry (SWV) was developed using a portable device for the determination of organic UVFs in cosmetics, comparing its performance with HPLC-PDA and HPLC-MS/MS. An interesting element is represented by the fact that in the present work, not only are the SWV method and a portable device developed and validated but also everything is compared with two reference configurations (HPLC-PDA and HPLC-MS/MS). In this case, the chromatographic method has demonstrated the necessary granularity to be applied directly to two different instrumentations, obtaining a comparable performance without any method transfer problems. One of the main objectives of green analytical chemistry (GAC) and green sample preparation (GSP) lies in the possibility of carrying out in situ measurements using simple strumentation and with the use of nontoxic reagents and solvents, reducing the sample manipulation and the number of steps related to pretreatment. The method and the portable device presented here allow us to be compliant with these principles, highlighting how this approach can be considered green and low-impact, paving the way for new applications in other fields as well (i.e., environmental and biological ones) in order to monitor the presence of these compounds.