Automated liquid membrane extraction for high-performance liquid chromatography of Ropivacaine metabolites in urine

An automatic method for the determination of metabolites of Ropivacaine in urine was set up. It utilizes supported liquid membrane extraction for sample clean-up and enrichment, followed by ion-pair chromatography determination using UV detection. The extraction was very selective with no observed interfering compounds from the urine matrix, permitting simple isocratic chromatographic analysis. The detection limits for spiked urine samples were 2-18 nM for the different compounds. The repeatability was 1-3% (RSD) with an internal standard that was also extracted, and about twice without this standard. A throughput of 3.3 samples per hour was achieved and the liquid membrane was stable for more than a week.