AMINO-OXYACETIC ACID: ANALYSIS AND TOXICOLOGY

Pretreatment of carnation cut flowers cv. Scania with amino-oxyacetic acid (AOA) was shown to enhance the keeping quality of these flowers. Introduction of this chemical in commercial floriculture however, requires information about the toxicological aspects and a method to check whether flowers are pretreated or not. From the literature it was concluded that subcutaneous or intraperitoneal administration of AOA to small animals gives LD₅₀ values of about 50 mg/kg. However, oral administration of relatively high doses (200–400 mg/day) for longer periods of time (weeks to months) to humans did not cause serious problems.

A high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of AOA. The method is based on the reaction of AOA with pyridoxal to form an 0-substituted oxime, which can be determined with fluorescence detection.