Spectrophotometric method for Determination of oxymetazoline, HCl in a Pharmaceutical formulation using 2,4 - dinitrophenylhydrazine

Abstract

Rapid, sensitive and simple spectrophotometric method for the determination of oxymetazoline hydrochloride (OXMZ) is developed. The method is based on an oxidative coupling reaction with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (2,4-DNPH) in a basic medium (pH 11.2) in the presence of  potassium periodate to produce a green colour, soluble in water , stable product and absorbs at 607 nm. Beer's law was in the linear range 2.5-30 μg/ml of OXMZ, the molar absorptivity , Sandellʼs sensitivity index and detection limit were 7242 liter. mol^-1.cm^-1, 0.0409 μg.cm^-2 and 0.1877 μg/ml respectively. The RSD value was 1.24- 1.39% depending on the concentration. This method was applied successfully to the determination of oxymetazoline in pharmaceutical preparation nazordin drops with recovery of not less than  99.87 % .