Elevated Temperature Air-Assisted Liquid-Liquid Microextraction of Pseudoephedrine from Human Urine Samples Coupled with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Ultraviolet Detection

Background: Pseudoephedrine is a broadly used drug for the clinical treatment of bronchitis, respiratory allergies, and cancer pains. However, the use of pseudoephedrine is restricted by several medicinal commissions like International Olympic Committee (IOC). In this study, a reliable, inexpensive, green, and sensitive microextraction method has been developed for extraction and preconcentration pseudoephedrine in urine samples.

Methods: It is based on an air-assisted liquid-liquid microextraction (AALLME) technique in which choline chloride: p-chlorophenol deep eutectic solvent (DES) was used as the extraction. The extracted analyte was determined by a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-ultraviolet detector. The effective factors on the efficiency of the method such as kind of extraction solvent, pH of sample solution, extraction time, and ionic strength were investigated.

Results: Under the optimized conditions, the extraction recovery (ER) and enrichment factors(EFs) were 89% and 222, respectively. The method detection limit, relative standard deviation(RSD), and linear range were 0.21 ng mL-1, 4.9%, and 0.69-1000 ng mL-1, respectively.

Conclusion: The validated method was successfully performed on different urines samples obtained from the persons who were under treatment with pseudoephedrine.