Spectrophotometric determination of benzydamine HCl, levamisole HCl and mebeverine HCl through ion-pair complex formation with methyl orange

A simple, rapid and sensitive spectrophotometric method has been proposed for the assay of benzydamine HCl (BENZ), levamisole HCl (LEV) and mebeverine HCl (MBV) in bulk and pharmaceutical formulations. The method based on the reaction of the selected drugs with methyl orange (MO) in buffered aqueous solution at pH 3.6. The formed yellow ion-pair complexes were extracted with dichloromethane and measured quantitatively with maximum absorption at 422 nm. The analytical parameters and their effects on the reported systems are investigated. The extracts are intensely colored and very stable at room temperature. The calibration graphs were linear over the concentration range of 2-10 mu g ml(-1) for BENZ, 6-24 mu g ml(-1) for LEV and 4-14 mu g ml(-1) for MBV. The stoichiometry of the reaction was found to be 1: 1 in all cases and the conditional stability constant (K-f) of the complexes have been calculated. The proposed method was successfully extended to pharmaceutical preparations-tablets. Excipients used as additive in commercial formulations did not interfere in the analysis. The proposed method can be recommended for quality control and routine analysis where time, cost effectiveness and high specificity of analytical technique are of great importance. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.