Spectrofluorimetric study of the charge-transfer complexation of certain fluoroquinolones with 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane

Simple, rapid and sensitive spectrofluorimetric methods are described, for the first time, for the determination of ciprofloxacin (CIP), norfloxacin (NOR), pefloxacin (PEF) and fleroxacin (FLE). The methods are based on the charge-transfer (CT) reaction of these drugs as n-electron donors with 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) as π-electron acceptor. TCNQ was found to react with these drugs to produce intensely transfer reaction complexes and the fluorescence intensity of the complexes was enhanced in 21-35 fold higher than that of the studied fluoroquinolones itself. The formation of such complexes was also confirmed by both infrared and ultraviolet-visible measurements. The different experimental parameters that affect the fluorescence intensity were carefully studied. At the optimum reaction conditions, the drug-TCNQ complexes showed excitation maxima ranging from 277 to 284 nm and emission maxima ranging from 451 to 458 nm. Rectilinear calibration graphs were obtained in the concentration range of 0.03-0.9, 0.04-1.2, 0.04-1.3 and 0.08-2.4 μg ml−1 for CIP, NOR, PEF and FLE, respectively. The developed methods were applied successfully for the determination of the studied drugs in their pharmaceutical dosage forms with a good precision and accuracy compared to official and reported methods as revealed by t- and F-tests.