Indirect spectrophotometric determination of arbutin, whitening agent through oxidation by periodate and complexation with ferric chloride

A simple and accurate spectrophotometric method for the determination of arbutin (glycosylated hydroquinone) is described. It is based on the oxidation of arbutin by periodate in presence of iodate. Excess periodate causes liberation of iodine at pH 8.0. The unreacted periodate is determined by measurement of the liberated iodine spectrophotometrically in the wavelength range (300–500 nm).A calibration curve was constructed for more accurate results and the correlation coefficient of linear regression analysis was −0.9778. The precision of this method was better than 6.17% R.S.D. (n = 3). Regression analysis of Bear–Lambert plot shows good correlation in the concentration range 25–125 ug/ml. The identification limit was determined to be 25 ug/ml a detailed study of the reaction conditions was carried out, including effect of changing pH, time, temperature and volume of periodate. Analyzing pure and authentic samples containing arbutin tested the validity of the proposed method which has an average percent recovery of 100.86%.An alternative method is also proposed which involves a complexation reaction between arbutin and ferric chloride solution. The produced complex which is yellowish-green in color was determined spectophotometrically.