No abstract

No abstract

This paper demonstrates the analysis of levetiracetam, a new chiral antiepileptic drug, at ng/mL levels using an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)-photodiode absorbance (PDA) method. Three different sample preparation methods, liquid-liquid extraction with Extrelut, solid phase extraction (SPE) with Oasis HLB and Oasis MAX SPE cartridges, and protein precipitation with organic solvents were carried out. The last preparatory method is the simplest and provides the best recoveries: between 97.1% and 100.4% with RSD value below 5%. The column for separation is BEH C18 column (1.7 µm particle size and 100 × 2.1 mm i.d.) and acetonitrile-phosphate buffer (pH = 6.6; 0.01 M) (10/90 v/v) is the mobile phase. The results obtained are compared to analysis conducted by the HPLC method. The UHPLC method was validated in the range of 2-100 µg/mL levetiracetam concentration (R(2) = 0.9997). LOD and LOQ are 10 ng/mL and 33 ng/mL, respectively. The developed UHPLC method was applied to plasma samples of patient with epilepsy.

No abstract

New shell-type stationary phases are widely used in fast chromatographic measurements. These columns provide more efficient separation, when applied in a conventional high-performance liquid chromatography instrument, than columns with fully porous particles, and the volume overload of core-shell particles is 60% of the value obtained for fully porous particles. Additionally, to achieve adequate sensitivity, the injection volume cannot be significantly decreased. This study presents a systematic evaluation of the possibilities of large volume injection onto columns packed with 2.6 µm Kinetex C18 shell particles. The effect of volume overload on performance of columns with different lengths (50, 100 and 150 mm) is studied. Column efficiency is compared under isocratic, pulse gradient and gradient conditions. The application of large volume injection in practice is also reported. The most suitable among the tested large volume injection techniques was the gradient elution, which was applied to determine amino acid enantiomers from fruit juice.