Spectrophotometric assay of retinol via charge-transfer complexes

Simple and sensitive spectrophotometric methods for the assay of retinol have been presented. The first method was based on the reaction of retinol with iodine to give a molecular charge-transfer complex, the retinol acting as n-donor and iodine as -electron acceptor. The second method depends on the formation of a highly coloured stable radical anion between retinol and 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ as a -electron acceptor. The molecular ratios of the reactants in the complexes have been established and the experimental conditions leading to maximum charge-transfer bands were also studied. Beer's law is obeyed over the retinol concentration range 2.5–26 µg/ml. The proposed procedures have been applied successfully to the analysis of drug formulation. The average recovery and average standard deviation was 99.99 ±1.13% with retinol-iodine and 100.001 ± 1.31% with retinol-TCNQ. A kinetic study was performed by heating retinol at 50°C for different periods of time, the result obtained by plotting log c against time indicates that thermal decomposition of retinol is of first order. The results obtained by both methods were in good agreement with those obtained by the official method. The developed procedures were found to be simple, accurate and precise and can be used for the determination of retinol in presence of its degradation products.