Speciation of methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl and its derivatives: A review

Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese, tricarbonyl (MMT) is an organomanganese compound that is used as an octane enhancer for gasoline and other fuels. The widespread use of this compound has been suggested to be harmful to human health. In order to accurately assess its impact, high sensitivity instrumentation for the determination of MMT and its derivatives is required. In this paper, three instrumental approaches are reviewed for this analysis. Walton and coworkers (1) employed high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to a flame laser-excited atomic fluorescence spectrometry (LEAFS) detector to evaluate the organomanganese compound responsible for organ damage in rats following subcutaneous injection of this compound. Gas chromatography (GC) was coupled to an alternating current plasma (ACP) detector by Ombaba and Barry (2) for the determination of MMT in gasoline and fuel samples. Butcher et al. (3) employed HPLC with diode laser atomic absorption spectrometry (DLAAS) for the determination of MMT in water, gasoline, and urine. The conclusion of this paper is a comparison of the analytical capabilities of these instruments.