Flow injection analysis of formaldehyde leached from denture-base acrylic resins.

Formaldehyde is responsible for allergic inflammation in acrylic denture wearers and the quantitation of formaldehyde is necessary to study its leaching from denture-base materials. Flow injection analysis was developed to quantify the formaldehyde leached from acrylic resins. Different resins were immersed in aqueous solvents at 37 degrees C and the immersion solutions were directly injected into the flow system, in which formaldehyde was converted on-line to a fluorescent derivative and its fluorescence was detected. Under the optimized conditions, the leached formaldehyde could be quantified in a short time (within 4 min) with high sensitivity (pmol levels per injection) and high specificity (no fluorescent response to the other leachables). In leaching experiments, significant amounts of formaldehyde were leached from autopolymerized resins, but not from heat- and microwave-polymerized resins.