Hydrophobicity-aided potentiometric detection of catecholamines, beta-agonists, and beta-blockers in a mixed-solvent capillary electrophoresis system

BAZYLAK, GRZEGORZ; MONGE, MARIA EUGENIA; EVERAERT, JOSEPH; NEGELS, LUC JOSEPH

JOURNAL OF SEPARATION SCIENCE

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

Año: 2009 vol. 32 p. 135 - 146

1615-9306

A series of cationic drug-like substances with distinct basicity, hydrogen-bonding ability, and hydrophobicity, including three catecholamines, two beta-agonists, and thirteen beta-blockers, was successfully detected in a capillary electrophoresis system using an end-capillary coupled potentiometric sensor consisting of a PVC-based liquid membrane deposited directly on a 100 μm diameter copper rod. The electrophoretic separation was performed on a 72 cm × 75 μm id uncoated fused-silica capillary with an acidic background electrolyte containing phosphoric acid in a water-acetonitrile mixture, pH* 2.8. Samples were injected electrokinetically at 5.0 kV for 10 s and a running voltage of 19.5 kV was applied. Excluding the bufuralol/ practolol pair, baseline separation of all substances was achieved in the developed CE system within 9 minutes. A linear relationship (R2 0.8752) between the sensitivity of the applied potentiometric detector and the parameter log P characterising the hydrophobicity of the analytes was demonstrated. The best observable limits of detection (LODs) were obtained for the highly hydrophobic substances, i.e. bufuralol (8.10 × 10-8 M injected concentration, S/N = 3), propranolol, alprenolol, and clenbuterol (ca. 1.10 × 1017 M). In the case of hydrophilic catecholamines and carbuterol their LODs with potentiometric detection were lowered by a factor of almost one thousand, reaching a value of 6.6 × 10-5 M. © 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.