Determination of ephedrine and codeine in human urine by cation-selective exhaustive injection and sweeping micellar electrokinetic chromatography

A sensitive method for the determination of ephedrine and codeine in human urine by capillary electrophoresis (CE) was described. In order to improve the sensitivity, two online concentration techniques including cation-selective exhaustive injection (CSEI) and sweeping micellar electrokinetic chromatography (sweeping-MEKC) were used. Under the optimum conditions, the detection limits (S/N = 3) were 0.10 μg/L for ephedrine and 0.80 μg/L for codeine. This method was successfully applied to real urine sample analysis.