Electrochemical techniques to detect and quantify Enrofloxacin in presence of highly potential interferences: Assays in Chilean aqueous-soil matrices

Abstract

The bio-availability of antibiotics on the environment is an issue of great interest and concern due to the high impact they can produce over it. In this context, the high use of fluoroquinolones, such as Enrofloxacin, due to the agricultural activity in Chile, has provoked the accumulation of these compounds in the soil. At this point, the detection and so the quantification of Enrofloxacin becomes a real challenge due the presence of potential interferences. In this work, a comparative study of two electrochemical techniques is presented, in order to detect and quantify Enrofloxacin in presence of potential interferences such as Ciprofloxacin and humic acids from Ralun and Frutillar, as well as commercial humic acid. The results show that electrochemical techniques like Cyclic Voltammetry and Square Wave Voltammetry can be very useful over conventional techniques in order to detect and quantify this antibiotic in presence of abovementioned interferences in a soil-solution matrix, since they show high linearity, low limits of detection and quantification, which open the chance of using these electrochemical devices as possible amperometric sensors, considering the complementary use of other analytical techniques (LC-MS) in order to improve selectivity, by using these electrochemical techniques.