Development of a potentiometric sensor for the determination of carbamazepine and its application in pharmaceutical formulations

BACKGROUND: Epilepsy is a neurological disorder and its treatment is carried out with anti-epileptic drugs. Carbamazepine has been in use since 1965, as a safe and effective anti-epileptic agent. In this paper, a poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) membrane carbamazepine selective potentiometric sensor was developed for the determination of carbamazepine in pharmaceutical formulations. Carbamazepine-tetraphenylborate (CBZ-TPB) ion-pair was synthesized as an electroactive component and PVC membrane sensors were prepared with different CBZ-TPB ratios. The membrane with the best analytical properties was determined as the one with 2.0% CBZ-TPB ion-pair, 33.0% PVC and 65.0% o-nitrophenyl octyl ether (o-NPOE). RESULTS: The proposed sensor exhibited linear responses over the concentration range 1.0 x 10(-5) - 1.0 x 10(-2) mol L-1 (R-2 = 0.999). The limit of detection was 9.60 x 10(-6) mol L-1. The developed sensor showed high selectivity against carbamazepine over some ionic species investigated and also over other anti-epileptic drugs. The potentiometric response of the sensor was not affected by pH in the wide pH range of 4.0-9.0 and the response was fast, at asymptotic to 10s. CONCLUSION: The fabricated carbamazepine-selective sensor was applied for the determination of carbamazepine contents of some pharmaceutical formulations. The potentiometric measurement results for the pharmaceutical formulations gave results with good agreement with data obtained using UV-visible spectroscopy. As a result, the developed carbamazepine selective potentiometric sensor can be considered as an alternative to other analytical methods for the determination of carbamazepine in pharmaceutical samples.(c) 2022 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).

Automated summary

A poly(vinyl chloride) membrane carbamazepine selective potentiometric sensor was developed for the determination of carbamazepine in pharmaceutical formulations. The sensor exhibited high selectivity and fast response for carbamazepine measurement.