Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Rapid and Reliable HPLC Method for the Determination of Vitamin C in Pharmaceutical Samples

Snezana S Mitić¹, Danijela A Kostić¹ , Danijela C Nasković-Đokić², Milan N Mitic¹

¹Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics,Visegradska 33, 18000 NiÅ¡; ²D.D. ''Zdravlje-Actavis"- Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company, 16000 Leskovac, Serbia.

For correspondence:- Danijela Kostić Email: danijelaakostic@yahoo.com Tel:+38118533014

Received: 2 July 2010 Accepted: 24 November 2010 Published: 14 February 2011

Citation: Mitić SS, Kostić DA, Nasković-Đokić DC, Mitic MN. Rapid and Reliable HPLC Method for the Determination of Vitamin C in Pharmaceutical Samples. Trop J Pharm Res 2011; 10(1):105-111 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v10i1.16

© 2011 The authors.
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Abstract

Purpose: To develop and validate an accurate, sensitive and reproducible high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the quantitation of vitamin C in pharmaceutical samples.

Method: The drug and the standard were eluted from Superspher RP-18 (250 mm x 4.6 mm, 10mm particle size) at 20 ⁰C. The mobile phase was prepared by carefully adding acetic acid (500 ml) to 1.5g of 1-hexanesulfonic acid sodium salt and mixing well (pH 2.6). The flow rate was 0.7 mL min^-1. UV detector, set at 280 nm, was used to monitor the effluent.

Results: Each analysis required no longer than 4 min. The limit of quantitation was 1.95 mg mL^-1. Recovery (%) for different concentrations ranged from 99.58 to 101.93.

Conclusion: The simplicity of this low-cost, rapid technique and its high specificity to ascorbic acid, even in the presence of a variety of excipients, demonstrate that this HPLC method would be particularly suitable for the determination of ascorbic acid in the investigated preparations as well as other similar pharmaceutical/veterinary formulations without prior sample preparation.

Keywords: Ascorbic acid; Pharmaceutical preparations; HPLC method