Simultaneous determination of sertraline, imipramine and alprazolam in human plasma samples using headspace solid phase microextraction based on nanostructured polypyrrole fiber coupled to ion mobility spectrometry

This paper describes the development of a simple, rapid, and sensitive method based on headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) combined with ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for the simultaneous determination of antidepressant drugs, sertraline (SER), imipramine (IMI) and alprazolam (ALP), in human plasma samples. IMS equipped with corona discharge (CD) ionization along with HS-SPME has been successfully applied for quantitative analysis without derivatization steps. A dodecylbenzenesulfonate doped polypyrrole coating was used as a fiber for HS-SPME. The effect of various parameters on microextraction efficiency were evaluated, including extraction temperature, extraction time, ionic strength, salt concentration and pH of the sample were also studied and optimized to obtain the best HS-SPME results. The HS-SPME–IMS method provided good repeatability (RSD ≤ 5%) for three replicate analysis and linear calibration range between 0.3-5 µg.mL-1, 0.5-5 µg.mL-1 and 1-5 µg.mL-1 for sertraline, imipramine and alprazolam, respectively (R2 > 0.99). Limit of detection for sertraline, imipramine and alprazolam were 0.08, 0.12 and 0.27 µg.mL-1, respectively. The proposed method was applied for determination of sertraline, imipramine and alprazolam in human plasma samples. Validation of the analytical procedure was determined as percentage of recovery and was confirmed by the add-found method in human plasma samples. The analyte recoveries obtained were in the range of 93-97%. The proposed method provides several advantages such as high sensitivity, good repeatability, organic solvent-free, less time-consuming and relatively inexpensive as compared to HPLC.