| Purpose: Fluoxetine is the most prescribed antidepressant drug worldwide. In
this work, a new dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) method
combined with spectrofluorimetry has been developed for the extraction and
determination of FLX in pharmaceutical formulations and human urine.
Methods: For FLX determination, the pH of a 10 mL of sample solution
containing FLX, was adjusted to 11.0. Then, 800 μL of ethanol containing 100
μL of chloroform was injected rapidly into the sample solution. A cloudy
solution was formed and FLX extracted into the fine droplets of chloroform.
After centrifugation, the extraction solvent was sedimented and supernatant
aqueous phase was readily decanted. The remained organic phase was diluted
with ethanol and its fluorescence was measured at 292±3 nm after excitation at
234±3 nm. Results: Some important parameters influencing microextraction
efficiency were investigated. Under the optimum extraction conditions, a linear
calibration curve in the range of 10 to 800 ng/mL with a correlation coefficient
of r2 = 0.9993 was obtained. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of
quantification (LOQ) were found to be 2.78 and 9.28 ng/mL, respectively. The
relative standard deviations (RSDs) were less than 4%. Average recoveries for
spiked samples were 93–104%. Conclusion: The proposed method gives a very
rapid, simple, sensitive, wide dynamic range and low–cost procedure for the
determination of FLX. |