Management has given me the task of developing a method to quantify dimethicone in in one of our new lip balm formulations, and I think I need a little help with it. The formula is 98.5% wax/oil and 1.5% dimethicone. My lab is pretty basic, but we have an FTIR and a range of solvents.
What I understand so far about dimethicone is that there are no chromophores, so my UV/vis HPLC is of no use. It is not volatile, so a GC would be no use. My FTIR software allows you to subtract one spectra from another, however, at 1.5%, the peak remaining at 1260cm-1 is very small when you subtract the placebo spectra from the full formula.
Does anybody have any advice regarding a method of extracting dimethicone from an oil base?