Extractive Spectrophotometric Determination of Amitriptyline Hydrochloride in Pure and Pharmaceutical Formulations

A sensitive, reproducible and accurate spectrophotometric method has been developed for determining amitriptyline hydrochloride (ATH) from its pharmaceutical formulation based on solvent extraction into chloroform of the product formed with 1, 2-naphthoquinon-4-sulphonate. The reaction and extraction was complete and quantitative at pH 1.3. The Beer’s law of yellow colored species is obeyed in the range of concentration of 2 – 18 µg ml×-1 at the maximum absorption of 450 nm. The molar absorptivity and Sandell’s sensitivity values were found to be of 3.2382 x 103l mol-1cm-× and 0.9615 µg cm-2 respectively. The results compare favourably with those of official methods. The method is successfully employed for the determination of ATH in pharmaceutical preparations.