Electrochemical Determination of Citalopram by Adsorptive Stripping Voltammetry–Determination in Pharmaceutical Products

Abstract

The electrochemical behavior of citalopram was studied by square‐wave and square‐wave adsorptive‐stripping voltammetry (SWAdSV). Citalopram can be reduced and accumulated at a mercury drop electrode, with a maximum peak current intensity being obtained at a potential of approximately −1.25 V vs. AgCl/Ag, in an aqueous electrolyte solution of pH 12. A SWAdSV method has been developed for the determination of citalopram in pharmaceutical preparations. The method shows a linear range between 1.0×10⁻⁷ and 2.0×10⁻⁶ mol L⁻¹ with a limit of detection of 5×10⁻⁸ mol L⁻¹ for an accumulation time of 30 s. The precision of the method was evaluated by assessing the repeatability and intermediate precision, achieving good relative standard deviations in all cases (≤2.3%). The proposed method was applied to the determination of citalopram in five pharmaceutical products and the results obtained are in good agreement with the labeled values.

Keywords:

• Citalopram
• SSRI
• hanging mercury drop electrode
• adsorptive‐stripping voltammetry
• pharmaceutical analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors thank H. Lunbeck A/S for providing the citalopram hydrobromide standard. One of the authors (Henri P. A. Nouws) thanks the PRODEP III program for his Ph.D. grant.