Determination of Amphetamines in human whole blood by capillary electrophoresis with photodiode array detection

A capillary electrophoresis (CE) with photodiode array detection (DAD) method for the analysis of amphetamines in human whole blood samples is described. Amphetamines were applied to CE without any derivatization procedure and detected at 200 nm for a rapid and simple analysis. The UV-spectra are show in Fig. 2. Amphetamines were separated within 7 min through an uncoated fused-silica capillary (50 cm×50 m ID) using a 100 mM phosphate buffer (pH 2.5). A simple and fast extraction method of amphetamines from human whole blood was developed using acetonitrile. Very clean extracts were obtained in one step. Whole blood drugs free samples were spiked with amphetamine standard solution of known concentration. Linear calibration plots were obtained over a large concentration range, with correlation coefficients higher than 0.998. Recoveries between 81 and 99% were obtained. Limit of detection (LOD) was from 10 to 30 ng ml−1 for most of amphetamines, except for MDMA, for which it was 80 ng ml−1.