Simultaneous determination of ofloxacin and ornidazole in pharmaceutical preparations by capillary zone electrophoresis

A simple, rapid and validated capillary electrophoretic method has been developed for the separation and determination of ofloxacin and ornidazole in pharmaceutical formulations with detection at 230 nm. Optimal conditions for the quantitative separations were investigated. Analysis times shorter than 4 min were obtained using a background electrolyte solution consisting of 25 mmol/L phosphoric acid adjusted with 1 m Tris buffer to pH 8.5, with hydrodynamic injection of 5 s and 20 kV separation voltage. The validation criteria for accuracy, precision, linearity and limits of detection and quantitation were examined and discussed. An excellent linearity was obtained in concentration range 25–250 µg/mL. The detection limits for ofloxacin and ornidazole were 1.03 ± 0.11 and 1.80 ± 0.06 µg/mL, respectively. The proposed method has been applied for the analysis of ofloxacin and ornidazole both individually and in a combined dosage tablet formulation. The proposed validated method showed recoveries between 96.16 and 105.23% of the nominal contents. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.