Twelve collaborating laboratories assayed hydrazine in technical maleic hydrazide (MH), 6-hydroxy-2H-pyridazin-3-one, and 2 formulated products, a liquid concentrate and a soluble granule, using gas chromatography (GC) with electron capture detection. The hydrazine content in the samples ranged from 0.03 ppm, in the liquid concentrate, to 0.26 ppm, in MH technical. Hydrazine and MH are dissolved in an aqueous solution. The MH is then precipitated out of solution by acidification. The solution containing hydrazine is treated with excess pentafluorobenzaldehyde (PFB) to form pentafluorobenzaldehyde azine (PFBA). The PFBA is extracted with hexane for analysis by GC using an electron capture detector. Peak area responses of PFBA are measured and quantified by external standardization. Hydrazine concentration is calculated from the PFBA determination. The laboratories weighed each test sample in duplicate with duplicate analysis for each weighing. Data from these laboratories were statistically analyzed. The average relative repeatability was determined to be 5.34 and the average relative reproducibility was 27.99.

Fourteen collaborating laboratories assayed maleic hydrazide (MH), 6-hydroxypyridazin-3(2H)-one, in technical and formulated products by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (LC) with sulfanilic acid as an internal standard. The active MH in the samples (6 lots) ranged from 16% (expressed as the potassium salt) to 98% (MH in the technical). A small amount of 1 M KOH was added to the technical MH and analytical standards to create the potassium salt of the analyte which is soluble in water. Test samples and standards were extracted with water containing the internal standard before analysis by LC on a C8 column with an ion-pairing eluting solution and UV detection at 254 nm. The concentration of MH was calculated by comparing the peak area response ratios of the analyte and the internal standard with those in the analytical standard solution. Eleven laboratories weighed each test sample twice with single analysis. Three laboratories weighed each sample once and made duplicate injections on the LC system. The data were analyzed using the 11 laboratories' results. A second data analysis was done including all laboratory results using a Youden pair approach, selecting one of 2 duplicate assay values randomly for each laboratory and sample. In the first data analysis, the repeatability standard deviation ranged from 0.07 to 1.39%; reproducibility standard deviation ranged from 0.22 to 1.39%. In the second data analysis (using all laboratory data), repeatability standard deviation ranged from 0.09 to 0.86%; reproducibility standard deviation ranged from 0.22 to 1.31%.