Capillary Electrophoresis Coupled with Electrochemiluminescence for the Facile Separation and Determination of Salbutamol and Clenbuterol in Urine

A capillary electrophoresis coupled with tris(2,2′‐bipyridyl) ruthenium(II) (Ru(bpy)32+) electrochemiluminescence detection system was developed to determine salbutamol and clenbuterol in urine. Some factors that affected the performances of separation and detection were investigated. Under the optimized conditions, one single quantitative analysis of salbutamol and clenbuterol was achieved at a separation voltage of 15 kV within 9 min, and the LODs (S/N=3) and LOQs (S/N=10) of salbutamol and clenbuterol were 8.43×10−8 mol/L, 2.61×10−7 mol/L and 2.73×10−7 mol/L, 8.21×10−7 mol/L, respectively. The recovery obtained from the analysis of spiked urine samples was between 88.6 % and 104.7 % with RSDs lower than 6.70 %. The method was successfully applied to determine salbutamol and clenbuterol in urine samples.