Electrochemical analysis of chloramphenicol using boron-doped diamond electrode applied to a flow-injection system

The electrochemical properties of chloramphenicol at a boron-doped diamond thin-film (BDD) electrode were studied using cyclic voltammetry. The highest current response of chloramphenicol was obtained with phosphate buffer, pH 6 (0.1 M) in 1% ethanol. The relationship between the concentration of chloramphenicol and the current response was linear over the range of 0.1 - 10 mM (R-2 = 0.9990). The amount of chloramphenicol was analyzed by flow-injection analysis. A thin-layer flow cell equipped with a BDD electrode was used as an amperometric detector, and experiments were carried out at -0.7 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). The linear relationship between the current response and the concentration of chloramphenicol in the range of 0.1 - 50 mu M (R-2 = 0.9948) and the limit of detection of 0.03 mu M (S/N = 3) were obtained. This method has been successfully applied to the determination of chloramphenicol in sterile eye drops and milk sample by the standard addition method. The average recoveries of chloramphenicol in eye drops were 98.0%, and the average recoveries of chloramphenicol from spiked milk were 93.9 - 103%.