Analysis of epinephrine from fifteen different dental anesthetic formulations by capillary electrophoresis

A robust method for the quantification of epinephrine from 15 different com mercial dental anesthetic formulations is developed using CE. This work pre sents an extension to a method reported earlier. The solvability of several anesthetic compounds was improved through appropriate dilutions and the ad dition of sodium dodecyl sulfate to the separation background electrolyte. By controlling the mobility of the analyte at different pH values, a dilute solution of epinephrine is focused into a sharp zone with the injection of about 150 nl of anesthetic solution into the capillary. This on-column con centration technique extended the concentration detection limit of epinephr ine to about 5.0 x 10(-7) M using a commercially available UV detector. A c orrelation plot between the measured and listed epinephrine concentration f or the 15 dental anesthetic solutions demonstrated excellent accuracy of th is method. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.