Sensitive and selective spectrophotometric methods for the determination of pheniramine maleate in bulk drug and in its formulations using sodium hypochlorite

Two simple, selective and sensitive spectrophotometric methods are described for the determination of pheniramine maleate (PAM) in pure and dosage forms. The method is based on the reaction of PAM with hypochlorite in the presence of Kolthoff buffer (phosphate-borate) of pH 7.0 to form the chloro derivative of PAM, destruction of the excess hypochlorite by nitrite ion (the chloro derivative of drug is unaffected under the optimized conditions) followed by the oxidation of iodide with the chloro derivative of PAM to iodine (I ₃ ^? which is either measured directly at 355 (method A) or reacted with starch to form a blue chromogen measurable at 590 nm (method B). The optimum conditions that affect the reaction were ascertained, and under these conditions linear relationship was obtained in the concentration ranges of 2–50 and 1–25 μg/mL PAM in methods A and B, respectively. The calculated molar absorptivity values are 7.26 × 10³ and 1.28 × 10⁴ L/(mol cm) for method A and method B, respectively. Sandell’s sensitivity values, limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) are calculated as per ICH guidelines. The proposed methods were applied successfully to the determination of PAM in tablets and injection with good accuracy and precision and without interferences from common additives. The results obtained by the proposed methods were compared favourably with those of the reference method. The accuracy and reliability of the proposed methods were further checked by recovery studies via standard addition procedure.