Voltammetric determination of the antifungal drug posaconazole in the presence of an anionic surfactant on a boron-doped diamond electrode

This study describes a new, fast and simple procedure of electrochemical assay of posaconazole (PCZ), which is currently regarded as one of the most important antifungal agents, recommended in the treatment of systemic infections, effective even against rare and atypical kinds of fungi. PCZ is very effective and safe, displaying much lower toxicity than other traditional antifungal drugs. A new, attractive procedure of assaying the compound on boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrode after cathodic pretreatment in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is presented in the work. The anionic surfactant SDS was selected after the comparative analysis of various cationic surfactants. PCZ gave a single irreversible oxidation peak at the potential of 0.59 V. The addition of SDS resulted in an almost 5-fold growth in the value of recorded currents as compared to those observed in the absence of the surfactant. The highest peak was obtained in Britton-Robinson buffer at pH 3.78. The calibration curve of PCZ plotted using the SWV technique was linear in the concentration range from 1.34·10 −8  mol/L to 1.44·10 −6  mol/L. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were 3.78·10 −9  mol/L and 1.14·10 −8  mol/L, respectively. The value of relative standard deviation of the measurements did not exceed 4.42 %, which proves good precision of the proposed method. The proposed procedure was successfully used in assaying PCZ in simulated gastric juice.