Different sample stacking strategies for the determination of ertapenem and its impurities by micellar electrokinetic chromatography in pharmaceutical formulation

Ertapenem, a Group 1 carbapenem, is most recently introduced into the market. It is a β-lactam antibiotic that possesses a broad antibacterial spectrum including common community-acquired Gram-positive and Gram-negative aerobic and anaerobic pathogens, but low activity against some nosocomial pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter spp., enterococci and methicillin-resistant staphylococci. The elaborated method of micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) of ertapenem separation from its impurities was successfully performed using normal stacking mode (NSM) and stacking with reverse migrating micelles (SRMM), followed by UV absorption detection at 214 nm. The best results were obtained with 60 mM sodium dihydrogen phosphate and 20 mM boric acid buffer pH 6.0, as background electrolyte. Uncoated fused-silica capillary and neutral-coated capillary with normal and reverse polarity, and voltage values of +18 and −12 kV, respectively, were used throughout the investigation. Sodium dodecyl sulfate was employed as the pseudostationary phase. A comparison of applied techniques, including sensitivity enhancement factors and limits of detection (LOD), is presented. The optimized method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy and precision. Comparable LOD was obtained using both stacking methods (0.3 μg/mL) but better efficiency of ertapenem peak was obtained using NSM. Under the optimum stacking conditions, about 183–4.75-fold and 1289–4.07-fold improvements in peak areas were obtained for NSM and SRMM, respectively, compared to the usual hydrodynamic sample injection (10 s). The reproducibility, expressed by relative standard deviations (RSD) of the migration times, for NSM was about 0.96–1.25 and for SRMM was 0.32–0.45. The RSD of corrected peak areas, for NSM was about 1.07–8.14 and for SRMM was 0.74–8.12. The difference in separation time between the two techniques was not obvious. Satisfactory separation was possible after less than 11 min of electrophoresis. The evaluated MEKC method was applied in the analysis of medicinal product containing ertapenem: Invanz—ertapenem for injection.