Determination of ephedrine and related compounds in pharmaceutical preparations by ion chromatography with direct conductivity detection

Voltammetric Analysis of Ephedrine in Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms and Urine Using poly(Nile Blue A) Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode

OBJECTIVE

The electrochemical analysis of ephedrine which is a sympathometric drug has been studied using poly(Nile blue A) modified glassy carbon electrodes, cyclic voltammetry, differential pulse voltammetry and square wave voltammetry.

METHODS

The modified electrodes were prepared by potential cycling electropolymerization of Nile blue A in 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution at pH 6.0. The redox behavior of ephedrine was investigated in different buffer solutions at pH values between 5.5 and 9.0.

RESULTS

Scan rate studies showed that the electron transfer reaction of ephedrine was diffusion controlled. A linear response was obtained between the peak current and the ephedrine concentration in the range of 0.6 to 100 μM with a limit of detection of 2.91×10^-3 μM for differential pulse voltammetry in Britton-Robinson buffer solution at pH 9.0. The linearity range of ephedrine in human urine was between 1.0 and 100 μM with a detection limit of 8.16 nM.

CONCLUSION

The recovery studies in both pharmaceutical dosage forms and urine showed that the proposed method ensured good selectivity, precision and accuracy without any interference from inactive excipients.

Analysis of alkaloids from different chemical groups by different liquid chromatography methods

Alkaloids are biologically active compounds widely used as pharmaceuticals and synthesised as secondary methabolites in plants. Many of these compounds are strongly toxic. Therefore, they are often subject of scientific interests and analysis. Since alkaloids — basic compounds appear in aqueous solutions as ionized and unionized forms, they are difficult for chromatographic separation for peak tailing, poor systems efficiency, poor separation and poor column-to-column reproducibility. For this reason it is necessity searching of more suitable chromatographic systems for analysis of the compounds. In this article we present an overview on the separation of selected alkaloids from different chemical groups by liquid chromatography thus indicating the range of useful methods now available for alkaloid analysis. Different selectivity, system efficiency and peaks shape may be achieved in different LC methods separations by use of alternative stationary phases: silica, alumina, chemically bonded stationary phases, cation exchange phases, or by varying nonaqueous or aqueous mobile phase (containing different modifier, different buffers at different pH, ion-pairing or silanol blocker reagents). Developments in TLC (NP and RP systems), HPLC (NP, RP, HILIC, ion-exchange) are presented and the advantages of each method for alkaloids analysis are discussed.

Polymeric sulfated amino acid surfactants: a class of versatile chiral selectors for micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) and MEKC-MS

In this work, three amino acid-derived (l-leucinol, l-isoleucinol, l-valinol) sulfated chiral surfactants are synthesized and polymerized. These chiral sulfated surfactants are thoroughly characterized to determine critical micelle concentration, aggregation number, polarity, optical rotation, and partial specific volume. For the first time the morphological behavior of polymeric sulfated surfactants is revealed using cryogenic high-resolution electron microscopy. The polysodium N-undecenoyl-l-leucine sulfate shows distinct tubular structure, while polysodium N-undecenoyl-l-valine sulfate also shows tubular morphology but without any distinct order of the tubes. On the other hand, polysodium N-undecenoyl-l-isoleucine sulfate (poly-l-SUCILS) displays random distribution of coiled/curved filaments with heavy association of tightly and loosely bound water. All three polymeric sulfated surfactants are compared for enantioseparation of a broad range of structurally diverse racemic compounds at very acidic, neutral, and basic pH conditions in micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC). A small combinatorial library of 10 structurally related phenylethylamines (PEAs) is investigated for chiral separation under acidic and moderately acidic to neutral pH conditions using an experimental design. In contrast to neutral pH conditions, at acidic pH, significantly enhanced chiral resolution is obtained for class I and class II PEAs due to the compact structure of polymeric sulfated surfactants. It is observed that the presence of a hydroxy group on the benzene ring of PEAs resulted in deterioration of enantioseparation. A sensitive MEKC-mass spectrometry (MS) method is developed for one of the PEAs (e.g., (+/-)-pseudoephedrine) in human urine. Very low limit of detection (LOD) is obtained at pH 2.0 (LOD 325 ng/mL), which is approximately 16 times better compared to pH 8.0 (LOD 5.2 microg/mL). Another broad range of chiral analytes (beta-blockers, phenoxypropionic acid, benzoin derivatives, PTH-amino acids, benzodiazepinones) studied also provided improved chiral separation at low pH compared to high-pH conditions. Among the three polymeric sulfated surfactants, poly-l-SUCILS with two chiral centers on the polymer head group provided overall higher enantioresolution for the investigated acidic, basic, and neutral compounds. This work clearly demonstrates for the first time the superiority of chiral separation and sensitive MS detection at low pH over conventional high-pH chiral separation and detection employing anionic chiral polymeric surfactants in MEKC and MEKC-MS.