Simple, fast and reliable CE method for simultaneous determination of ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin in human urine

A simple, fast, and accurate capillary zone electrophoresis method has been developed for the determination of ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin. This method uses liquid–liquid extraction. Therefore, it is characterized by a very simple procedure of sample preparation but at the same time satisfactory precision and accuracy. The extraction process of the same urine sample was repeated three times. The extraction protocol was performed each time for 15 min with 1 mL of dichloromethane and chloroform mixture in a 3:1 volume ratio. A 0.1 mol/L phosphate-borate buffer (pH 8.40) was selected as the background electrolyte. UV detection was performed at 288 nm. The separation was carried out at a voltage of 16 kV, at a temperature of 25 °C. Experimentally evaluated LOQ values for ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin were 0.2 nmol/mL urine and 0.05 nmol/mL urine, respectively. For both analytes the calibration curves exhibited linearity over the entire tested concentration range of 1–6 nmol/mL urine. The precision of the method did not exceed 15%, and the recovery was in the range of 85–115%. The developed and validated procedure was applied to analyze human urine for the content of ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin.