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A Simple and Reliable Spectrophotometric Method for the Determination of Ascorbic Acid in Pharmaceutical Preparations

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Abstract

In this study, a simple spectrophotometric method based on the reaction between ascorbic acid and the copper(II)–ammonia complex is presented for the determination of the vitamin C content of pharmaceutical preparations. During this reaction, ascorbic acid is oxidized and the copper(II)–ammonia complex is reduced to the copper(I)–ammonia complex, and the absorbance decrease at 600 nm (λmax for the copper(II)–NH3 complex) is measured. Stirring the final solution in the presence of air leads to the primary absorbance again being obtained, which indicates that the copper(I)–NH3 complex is quantitatively oxidized to the copper(II)–NH3 complex by O2. The linear dynamic range of the calibration curve is 0.8–6 mmol with a detection limit of 0.26 mmol. The relative standard deviation for eight repeated experiments is 2.4%, which shows that the proposed method has a good repeatability. Finally, this method was used in the analysis of the vitamin C content of different pharmaceutical preparations, such as multivitamin tablets and syrups, vitamin-C tablets and powders, and effervescent tablets. The obtained results are in good agreement with iodimetric data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

    M. A. Farajzadeh & S. Nagizadeh

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  1. M. A. Farajzadeh
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  2. S. Nagizadeh
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Farajzadeh, M.A., Nagizadeh, S. A Simple and Reliable Spectrophotometric Method for the Determination of Ascorbic Acid in Pharmaceutical Preparations. Journal of Analytical Chemistry 58, 927–932 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026119431422

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