Convenient UV-spectrophotometric determination of citrates in aqueous solutions with applications in the pharmaceutical analysis of oral electrolyte formulations

•A convenient method to determine citrates in aqueous solutions was proposed.•pH < 1.0 suppresses citric acid dissociation and allows UV determination at 209 nm.•Method can be readily applied to the determination of citrates in drugs and food.

Herein, we present a convenient method for quantitative spectrophotometric determination of citrate ions in aqueous solutions in the middle-UV range. It involves measuring the absorbance of citric acid at 209 nm under suppressed dissociation at pH < 1.0 in the presence of hydrochloric acid. Validation of the method was performed according to the guidelines of the International Conference on Harmonization. A very good linear dependence of the absorbance on concentration (r2 = 0.9999) was obtained in a citrate concentration range of 0.5-5.0 mmol/L. This method is characterized by excellent precision and accuracy; the coefficient of variation in each case is below the maximal permissible value (%RSD < 2). The proposed analytical procedure has been successfully applied to the determination of citrates in oral electrolyte formulations.

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