Determination of amitriptyline using electrogenerated chemiluminescence

A novel method for the selective and sensitive determination of amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant, using electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) is described. The ECL mechanism is based on the reaction between tris(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium(II) [Ru(bpy)(3)(2+)] and the tertiary amino group on amitriptyline. After optimizing the experimental conditions, a calibration over three orders of magnitude of concentration, was obtained. A linear calibration plot was constructed in order to evaluate the limit of detection, which was determined as 3.0 x 10(-7) mol l(-1) (94 ppb) with an average % S-r of 2.14 for 5 replicate measurements.