Simultaneous determination of atenolol and amiloride in pharmaceutical preparations by capillary zone electrophoresis with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection

Capillary zone electrophoresis coupled with a capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector (CE-C(4)D) has been employed for the determination of atenolol and amiloride in pharmaceutical formulations. Acetic acid (150 mm) was used as background electrolyte. The influence of several factors (detector excitation voltage and frequency, buffer concentration, applied voltage, capillary temperature and injection time) was studied. Non-UV-absorbing L-valine was used as internal standard; the analytes were all separated in less than 7 min. The separation was carried out in normal polarity mode at 28 degrees C, 25 kV and using hydrodynamic injection (25 s). The separation was effected in an uncoated fused-silica capillary (75 microm, i.d. x 52 cm). The CE-C(4)D method was validated with respect to linearity, limit of detection and quantification, accuracy, precision and selectivity. Calibration curves were linear over the range 5-250 microg/mL for the studied analytes. The relative standard deviations of intra- and inter-day migration times and corrected peak areas were less than 6.0%. The method showed good precision and accuracy and was successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of atenolol and amiloride in different pharmaceutical tablet formulations.