This paper describes a simple, rapid and sensitive chemiluminescence (CL) method for the determination of perphenazine by flow injection (FI) system. All variables that can affect the CL response were optimized by employing central composite design (CCD) for the experimental design and response surface methodology (RSM) for the modeling. Optimization by means of CCD method with respect to conventional single factor at a time method showed a significant improvement in the sensitivity. Under the optimum experimental conditions, a wide linear relationship between analyte concentration and peak height was obtained within the range 1.2-1,300 ng mL-1 with correlation coefficient of 0.9978. The limit of detection was 0.4 ng mL-1 (S/N = 3) and the relative standard deviation for 6 repeated measurements of a solution containing 70.5 ng mL-1 was lower than 4%. This method was successfully applied for the quantification of perphenazine in pharmaceutical formulations and human serum with good recoveries (95.3-104.0%). Sample throughput was 100 ± 5 samples per hour.
flow injection; chemiluminescence; perphenazine; central composite design
