Separation and determination of epinephrine and dopamine in traditional Chinese medicines by micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography with laser induced fluorescence detection.

A micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography method with laser-induced fluorescence detection was developed for the analysis of epinephrine and dopamine after derivatization with 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole. The optimum derivatization conditions were: 30 mM sodium borate (pH adjusted to 8.0 with 1.0 M HCl), reaction time 30 min at 60 degrees C. Baseline separation was achieved within 14 min with a running buffer composed of 10 mM sodium borate + 25 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (pH adjusted to 9.5 with 0.1 M NaOH) and an applied voltage of 15 kV. Good linearity relationships (correlation coefficients: 0.9991 for epinephrine and 0.9985 for dopamine) between peak areas and concentrations of the analytes were obtained. The detection limits and quantification limits for epinephrine and dopamine were 0.0038 mg/L and 0.013 mg/L, and 0.065 mg/L and 0.020 mg/L, respectively. The method was applied to the analysis of the two compounds in two Chinese medicines with recoveries in the range of 92.6-108.7%.