Serum procainamide analysis based on acetonitrile stacking by capillary electrophoresis

Stacking methods are important in capillary electrophoresis (CE) to overcome the poor detection limits. Cationic drugs are difficult to stack because they tend to interact with the capillary wall. As an example of the stacking of the cationic compounds, procainamide, an anti‐arrhythmic drug, is analyzed in serum by CE using an acetonitrile treatment. Serum was deproteinized with acetonitrile containing quinine as an internal standard. About 12% of the capillary volume was filled with sample and separated using an electrophoresis buffer composed of triethanolamine, 2‐( N ‐cyclohexylamino)ethanesulfonic acid (CHES) and 20% isopropanol, pH 8.2. Both the triethanolamine and the CHES were critical for the stacking. The addition of isopropanol improved the plate number for the procainamide and decreased the interfering compounds. Procainamide, its metabolite N ‐acetyl procainamide, and quinine were separated in about 7 min. The CE compared well with an immunoassay method.