Analysis of metformin dosage formulations by capillary electrophoresis at nano scale detection

An inexpensive, rapid and reproducible capillary electrophoretic method has been developed and validated for the determination of metformin in pharmaceutical preparations. The method was developed utilizing a fused silica capillary (60 cm x 50 microm I.D.), phosphate buffer (50 mM, 3.0 pH)-acetonitrile (95:5, v/v) as background electrolyte (BGE), 20 kV applied voltage with UV detection at 254 nm and at a working temperature of 23 +/- 1 degrees C. Linearity was observed in the concentration range from 100 ng/L to 5 microg/L, with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9998. The limits of detection and quantification achieved were 60 and 100 ng/mL, respectively. The recovery of metformin from pharmaceutical preparations was 99.1%. These validation parameters demonstrate the precision of the method and its suitability for the determination of metformin in pharmaceutical tablet formulations.