Spectrophotometric determination of chlorhexidine with bromocresol green by flow-injection and manual methods

A spectrophotometric study of the chlorhexidine/bromocresol green/Triton X-100 system is reported; at pH 5.3, both 2:1 and 1:1 bromocresol green/chlorhexidine complexes are formed. In the manual spectrophotometric method, Beer's law is obeyed for chlorhexidine concentrations of 2.9–32.2 μg ml^?1 (r.s.d. 0.4–1.3%); the molar absorptivity is 12 500 l mol^?1 cm^?1. In the flow-injection method, the calibration graph is linear for the chlorhexidine range 23.0–83.9 μg ml^?1 (r.s.d. 0.8%); the injection is ca. 60 h^?1. Benzocaine, acetylsalicylic acid, ascorbic acid and sucrose are tolerated at 10^?2?10^?3 M levels. Hibitane 5% was analyzed successfully.