Supercritical fluid extraction with in situ chiral derivatization for the enantiospecific determination of ibuprofen in urine samples

In situ chiral derivatization was used to obtain diastereomeric amides of ibuprofen for their subsequent extraction with supercritical carbon dioxide. For this purpose, ibuprofen racemic 2-(4-isobutylphenyl)propionic acids] was previously extracted on a C-18 SPE device and quantitatively transferred into the supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) vessel for derivatization and extraction with (R)-1-(naphthen-1-yl)ethylamine as chiral derivatizing base, and a mixture of 1-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-3-ethylcarbodiimide and 1-hydroxybenzotriazole as reagents, in order to obtain and extract the corresponding diastereoisomeric amides, which were subsequently determined by liquid chromatography. The influence of different extraction and derivatization variables (pressure, temperature, extraction time in the static and dynamic extraction modes, and amount of chiral base) on the extraction efficiency was studied. Spiked and native urine samples containing ibuprofen were used to demonstrate the application of this method. The absolute recovery, selectivity, precision and accuracy of the combined solid-phase extraction (SPE)/SFE approach were compared to those provided by conventional liquid–liquid extraction. The results indicated that SFE seems to be an effective choice for in situ derivatization since analysis times and solvent consumption were dramatically reduced.