Original Articles
M. C. Sharma*, Smita Sharma1 a
Abstract
Various organic solvents like methanol, chloroform, alcohol, dimethyl formamide; acetonitrile, hexane, acetone and carbon tetrachloride have been employed for solubilization of poorly watersoluble drugs for spectrophotometric estimations. Drawbacks of organic solvents include higher cost, toxicity and error in analysis due to volatility. Attempting to minimize these drawbacks, three new, simple, accurate, environmental friendly, cost effective, safe, sensitive spectrophotometric methods have been developed. The primary objective of the present investigation was to employ these hydrotropic solutions to extract the drugs from their dosage forms, precluding the use of costlier organic solvents. Ultraviolet absorption spectrophotometric method for the estimation of poorly water soluble drugs like Melitracen HCl in pharmaceutical formulations has been developed. Aqueous solubilities of this selected model drugs was to a great extent (28 to 35 fold) in 5.0 M niacinamide solutions. The selected λmax for Melitracen HCl were 286.5 nm respectively. The hydrotropic solutions used did not show any absorbance above 306 nm, and therefore, no interference in the estimation was seen. The results of analysis have been validated statistically, and by recovery studies.