Spectrophotometric study of diclofenac-Fe(III) complex

A multifactor optimisation technique is successfully applied to develop a new spectrophotometric method in which diclofenac sodium is analysed and determined as it's Fe(III) complex. The effect of simultaneously varying the pH, ionic strength and concentration of colour reagents in the reaction mixture were studied. A four-variable two-level factorial design was used to investigate the significance of each variable and interactions between them. A response surface design was used to optimise complex formation and extraction. It was established that diclofenac reacts with Fe(III) chloride, in the presence of ammonium thiocyanate, in the pH range 4.2-6.5, forming a red chloroform extractable (2:1) complex with maximum absorbance at 481 nm. By applying the methods of Sommer and Job involving non-equimolar solutions the conditional stability constant of the complex, at the optimum pH of 6.0 and an ionic strength mu = 0.19M, was found to be 10(6.4). Good agreement with Beer's law was found for diclofenac concentrations up to mmol l(-1). The nominal percent recovery of diclofenac was 98.8% (n = 10). The lower limit of sensitivity of the method was found to be 14.7 mu g ml(-1). (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.