Optimization of capillary electrophoresis method with contactless conductivity detection for the analysis of tobramycin and its related substances

A method was validated and optimized to determine tobramycin (TOB) and its related substances. TOB is an aminoglycoside antibiotic which lacks a strong UV absorbing chromophore or fluorophore. Due to the physicochemical properties of TOB, capillary electrophoresis (CE) in combination with Capacitively Coupled Contactless Conductivity Detection (C4D) was chosen.The optimized separation method uses a background electrolyte (BGE) composed of 25 mM morpholinoethane–sulphonic acid (MES) adjusted to pH 6.4 by l-histidine (l-His). 0.3 mM cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was added as electroosmotic flow modifier in a concentration below the critical micellar concentration (CMC). Ammonium acetate 50 mg L−1 was used as internal standard (IS). 30 kV was applied in reverse polarity (cathode at the injection capillary end) on a fused silica capillary (65/43 cm; 75 μm id).The optimized separation was obtained in less than 7 min with good linearity (R2 = 0.9995) for tobramycin. It shows a good precision expressed as RSD on relative peak areas equal to 0.2% and 0.7% for intraday and interday respectively. The LOD and LOQ are 0.4 and 1.3 mg L−1 corresponding to 9 pg and 31 pg respectively.