Application of potassium dichromate and iron-thiocyanate in the spectrophotometric investigations of phenothiazines

A spectrophotometric procedure for the determination of phenothiazines in pure form and in a number of their pharmaceutical preparations has been developed that offers the advantages of simplicity, accuracy, precision and sensitivity over many other methods. The method is based on the oxidation of phenothiazines by a known excess amount of potassium dichromate followed by the estimation of unreacted amount of dichromate by reacting with excess of iron(II) and measuring the iron(III) formed by complexing with thiocyanate. The reacted oxidant corresponds to the drug content. Different variables affecting the reaction between drugs and dichromate were studied and optimized. At the maximum absorption of 480 nm, Beer's law is obeyed in the range 2.5-29.75 mug/ml. The molar absorptivity and Sandell sensitivity of the procedure were calculated in addition to detection limit. Statistical treatment of the experimental results indicates that the procedure is precise and accurate. Excipients used as additives in pharmaceutical formulations did not interfere in the proposed procedure. The reliability of the method was established by parallel determination against the official BP methods. The procedure described was successfully applied to the determination of the bulk drugs and in pharmaceutical formulations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.