[Determination of enantiomeric purity for epinephrine by high performance liquid chromatography]

A procedure for the resolution of D,L-epinephrine and the determination of D-isomer ratio in a pharmaceutical formulation is described. The optical isomers of epinephrine were resolved by RP-HPLC with heptakis(2,6-di-O-methyl-beta-cyclodextrin) as a chiral mobile phase additives. The results showed that a correction factor must be introduced into the equation used for the calculation of the percentage of D-epinephrine, because the UV absorbance may not be the same when DM-beta-CD is present. Quantitation was achieved with external and internal standard method, HVA as an internal standard. This method can be used for the determination of the D-isomer in the L-epinephrine pharmaceutical formulation. The results showed that the mass fraction of D-isomer in the formulation increased during the period of storage.