High-performance liquid chromatography systems for the separation of local anaesthetic drugs with applicability to the analysis of illicit cocaine samples.

Two high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) systems are presented which are suitable for the separation of local anaesthetic drugs. An octadecyl-silica column is used with aqueous methanolic eluents (15 and 50% respectively) containing n-hexylamine-orthophosphoric acid buffers and data for 36 compounds are given. The HPLC systems have application for the identification of unknown drugs in this class while the first eluent (15% methanol, pH 2.5) is particularly useful for the examination of illicit cocaine samples because it gives good separation of common adulterants and impurities.