Determination of Coumarin in Mikania glomerata Infusions by Square-Wave Voltammetry Using a Boron-Doped Diamond Electrode

Infusions of Mikania glomerata Sprengel (guaco) leaves are used in Brazil for the treatment of respiratory diseases. Coumarin is the chemical marker of guaco for quality control purposes. This work proposes a voltammetric methodology to determine coumarin by using a boron doped diamond electrode. At pH 10 (0.1 mol L-1 Britton-Robinson buffer solution), coumarin is irreversibly oxidized around +1.77 V in a process predominantly controlled by diffusion. The methodology described here presented a linear range from 1.54 to 15.3 jig mL-1 with limits of detection and quantification of 0.20 and 0.62 jig mL-1, respectively. Analysis of variance confirmed the significance of the regression and the absence of lack-of-fit at the confidence level of 95%. Infusion of commercial guaco leaves was directly analyzed, and results were in agreement with highperformance liquid chromatography after applying the paired t-test at a confidence level of 95%.

Automated summary

This paper introduces a voltammetric method for determining the coumarin content in guaco leaves, and verifies the reliability of this method. The results show that this method is consistent with high-performance liquid chromatography.