Determination of Riboflavin Using the Polarographic Reduction Wave of Its Photochemical Reaction Products

Abstract

A new, simple, and sensitive method for the determination of riboflavin based on the single-sweep polarographic reduction wave of the photolysis products of riboflavin has been developed. Under the irradiation of an iodine-tungsten lamp, the photolysis reaction of riboflavin in pH 9.3 NH₃-NH₄Cl buffer solution can be complete in about 20 min. The reaction products yield a single adsorptive reduction wave at −0.63 V (vs. SCE) negative to the reduction wave of riboflavin by 0.18 V. The derivative wave height is linearly proportional to the concentration of riboflavin in the range of 0.01–17.5 µg/mL (correlation coefficient 0.996). The detection limit is 0.00 5µg/mL. The proposed method has been applied to the determination of multivitamin tablets with satisfactory results. In comparison with the methods directly using the reduction wave of riboflavin for the determination, this method eliminates the effect of the degradation of riboflavin on the determination accuracy and is much more sensitive. The new method could be useful in many fields.

Keywords:

• Determination of riboflavin
• photolysis
• reduction wave of photolysis products of riboflavin
• single-sweep polarography

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province, China (2005 ABA 001) and the Natural Science Foundation of South-Central University for Nationalities, Wuhan, China (YZY 06011).