Simultaneous determination of paracetamol and penicillin V by square-wave voltammetry at a bare boron-doped diamond electrode

A simple, sensitive and selective square-wave voltammetry method for simultaneous determination of paracetamol and penicillin V on a bare (unmodified) boron-doped diamond electrode has been developed. The good potential separation of about 0.35 V between the oxidation peak potentials of both drugs present in mixture was found. It was found by cyclic voltammetry that paracetamol gave quasireversible wave and penicillin V provided irreversible oxidation peak. The effect of supporting electrolyte, pH and scan rate on voltammetric response of both drugs was studied to select the optimum experimental conditions. The optimal conditions for quantitative simultaneous determination were obtained in acetate buffer solution at pH 5.0. The oxidation peak of paracetamol and penicillin V showed a systematic increase in peak currents with increase of their concentration. The calibration curves for the simultaneous determination of paracetamol and penicillin V exhibited the good linear responses within the concentration range from 0.4 to 100 μM for both drugs. The detection limit was established to 0.21 and 0.32 μM for paracetamol and penicillin V, respectively. The method proved the good sensitivity, repeatability (RSD of 1.5 and 2.1% for mixture solution of 10 μM PCM and PEN) and selectivity when influence of interferents commonly existing in human urine was negligible. The practical analytical utility of proposed method was demonstrated by simultaneous determination of paracetamol and penicillin V in human urine samples, with results similar to those obtained using a high-performance liquid chromatography method as an independent method.

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► Unmodified BDD electrode = sensitive electrochemical sensor for drugs determination.
► No special pretreatment of samples except simple dilution.
► Selective method, common compounds present in urine do not interfere in high excess.
► Simultaneous determination of PAR and PEN has yet not been published in literature.