Extraordinary enhancement of a 5-fluorouracil electrode by praepagen HY micellar solutions

Being able to incorporate 16 drug molecules in a micelle, alkyl hydroxyethyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (Praepagen HY), a surfactant, showed a distinct improvement in the performance of electrodes for determination of the anticancer 5-flourouracil (abbreviated FU). Praepagen HY can bring in this number of drug molecules into action where they are needed. This was attained by dissolving the samples in a praepagen HY utilizing a few carbon paste electrodes comprising derivatives of FU, namely FU-DAP, FU-DUL and FU-VAR designated S-1, S-2 and S-3 respectively. Thus, the presently fabricated sensors developed competitive properties which make them strongly attractive for determination of FU especially the first. These electrodes show Nernstian slopes of 31.6 mV, 31.7 mV and 28.6 mV per decade respectively for FU ion over a wide concentration range from 6.3 x 10(-6) to 1.0 x 10(-2), 3.5 x 10(-6) to 1.0 x 10(-2), and 1.2 x 10(-5) to 1.0 x 10(-2) M with notably low detection limits of 3.2 x 10(-6), 1.9 x 10(-6) and 1.1 x 10(-5) M, They show significantly fast response time (ca. 5-10 s). The present sensors show distinct selectivity toward the drug ion in comparison to other common anions. The potentiometric responses are independent of the pH of the test solution in the pH range 4.0-8.0. Practically, these sensors were satisfactorily used as indicators in potentiometric titration with S-1, S-2 and S-3 and determination of the drug ions in pharmaceutical preparations and urine.