Development of a solid phase extraction procedure for HPLC–DAD determination of several angiotensin II receptor antagonists in human urine using mixture design

The optimisation of a solid phase extraction procedure involves several variables whose influence has been widely studied. However, in most cases, only process variables are taken into account. In this work, the influence of those process variables together with the fact of using mixtures of solvents during the elution step of the solid phase extraction of four angiotensin II receptor antagonist drugs has been studied. Since the influence on the extraction efficiency of several process variables were simultaneously tested, a D-optimal design was constructed. The composition of the elution solvent (a mixture of methanol, acetonitrile, ethanol and acetone at different proportions from 0 to 100% each solvent), the percentage and pH of the buffer solution added to the urine samples at the beginning of the extraction procedure; the percentage of the organic component and the volume of the washing solution, the drying time and the volume of the elution solvent were the studied variables. The chromatographic separation was carried out by gradient elution mode with 0.026% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in the organic phase and 0.031% TFA in the aqueous phase using an Atlantis dC18, 100 mm × 3.9 mm I.D. chromatographic column at a flow rate of 1 mL/min and a column temperature of 35 ± 0.2 °C. For detection a diode array detector set at 232 nm was used. The extraction procedure for spiked human urine samples was developed using C8 cartridges, phosphate buffer pH 6.8 as conditioning agent, a drying step of 10 min, a washing step with methanol–phosphate buffer (20:80, v/v) and methanol as eluent. Recovery percentages obtained: 84% for eprosartan, 74% for telmisartan, 74% for irbesartan and 89% for valsartan allow the determination of these drugs concentration levels in urine.