DEVELOPMENT AND SET-UP OF DRUG ELECTROANALYSIS BY EXPERIMENTAL-DESIGN- A SURVEY

When working with an analytical method, one of the most important mome nts is the setting up of the experimental conditions. Some techniques of experimental design, together with some experimental matrices (Plac kett-Burman, Fractional Factorial Design, Doehlert Design, 3/4 Designs ) are presented. They are illustrated by some drug studies, referring to the optimization of their adsorptive stripping voltammetric determi nation. It is shown how, starting with a relatively high number of fac tors, a series of sequential experimental designs allows the required information to be obtanined reducing the number of variables under stu dy and/or their range at each step. In all cases examined, the final c onditions give a much better result than would have been achieved with a classical one-variable-at-a-time approach.