Separation and Determination of Chlorpheniramine and Its Dealkylated Metabolites From Urine

Application of ion-pair extraction to partition chromatographic techniques has been used effectively to separate chlorpheniramine and its dealkylated metabolites from one another in urine. Gas-liquid chromatography was employed to detect the amines. The ion-pair partition column employed selectively separated the amines prior to detection by gas chromatography. The chromatograms indicated symmetric peaks with little or no tailing typical of the secondary and primary amine metabolites. Recovery studies from urine demonstrated that at the parts-per-million level, complete recovery of chlorpheniramine and its metabolites was achieved after certain precautions against loss were taken. On the basis of these studies, an analytical procedure to separate chlorpheniramine and its metabolites from urine was developed. Recoveries of chlorpheniramine and its dealkylated metabolites were quantitative. The method offers the advantage of complete isolation of all components from one another and suggests the possibility of using ion-pair partition columns as a method to quantitatively separate other nitrogen-containing compounds from one another.