Abstract

An analytical method combining flow-injection analysis (FIA) with thermal-lens spectrometry (TLS) has been developed for high-throughput and sensitive analysis of cefoperazone (CPZ) in tap water and urine samples. The method is based on the indirect determination of CPZ through its alkaline oxidation with KMnO4. The performance of FIA-TL was validated for the determination of CPZ in the samples. The experimental parameters affecting the reaction were studied and optimized by a multivariate method. The calibration curves for the determination of CPZ were obtained considering the optimum values of the parameters. The detection limits were 2.70 center dot 10(-7 )mol L-1, 4.88 center dot 10(-7 )mol L-1, and 1.89 center dot 10(-7 )mol L-1, in standard solution, tap water, and urine, respectively. This work reports a new solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure for the analysis of urine. The accuracy of the analytical method was assessed by spike and recovery experiments. The precision was evaluated with inter-day and intra-day trials. The FIA-TLS method shows advantages over the batch conventional operation, such as high sensitivity, simple processing, low volume consumption, and high sample throughput (60 samples hr(-1)). The optimized FIA-TLS method may be applied for fast and sensitive quantitation of CPZ in real samples in flowing media.