Direct determination of procainamide and N-acetylprocainamide by capillary zone electrophoresis in pharmaceutical formulations and urine.

In this work a new sensitive capillary zone electrophoresis method for the direct determination of procainamide (PA) and N-acetylprocainamide (NAPA) in pharmaceutical formulations and urine samples without any extraction and/or preconcentration steps has been developed. The determination was carried out in a fused-silica capillary of 43.5 cm (35.9 cm length to the detector) x 0.75 micron J.D. Phosphate 0.05 M buffer was used as the background electrolyte and 10 kV separation voltage was applied. The separation of PA and NAPA is possible in a wide range of pH from 1.7 to 9.7. However, in order to avoid the effect of the urine matrix, it is optimal to work at pH 7.7. The determination of PA and NAPA takes less than 5 min while high resolution is achieved. The detection limits obtained, 1.235 micrograms/ml and 0.359 microgram/ml for PA and NAPA respectively, are lower than those for GC method normally reported.