Sensitive determination of fluoroquinolone residues in waters by capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence detection

A sensitive capillary electrophoresis -laser-induced fluorescence method has been developed for the determination of six fluoroquinolones of human (ofloxacin, lomefloxacin, and norfloxacin) and veterinary use (danofloxacin, enrofloxacin, and sarafloxacin) in different kinds of water. Fluorescence detection was achieved using a He-Cd laser, with a wavelength of 325 nm. Separation was performed in a fused-silica capillary, and conditions were optimized to obtain the most adequate separation and with the best sensitivity. The separation was carried out in a 70-cm-long capillary (75 mu m internal diameter, effective length 55 cm) by using a 125 mM phosphoric acid separation buffer at pH 2.8, with 36% of methanol. The water sample pretreatment involved the separation and preconcentration of the analytes by solid phase extraction. Two reverse-phase cartridges have been evaluated, namely Oasis hydrophilic-liphophilic balance and Strata-X; the latter provided the best recoveries for the selected analytes. The method shows very low detection limits (0.3-1.9 ng/L) with acceptable recoveries and precisions and has been successfully applied to the analysis of well and tap water samples.