Spectrophotometric Determination of Metoclopramide Hydrochloride in Pharmaceutical Preparations Via Oxidative Coupling Reaction

Abstract

A simple and rapid spectropotometric method for the determination of metoclopramide-HCl(MCP) was described. The method is based on the oxidative coupling reaction of pyrocatecol (PC) with MCP using ammonium ceric sulphate (ACS) as oxidizing agent in acidic medium to form a water soluble product, that is stable and has a maximum absorption at 500 nm. Beer’s law is obeyed in a concentration range of 5-35 g.ml-1 MCP with a molar absorptivity of 3.01103 l.mol-1.cm-1, a relative error of –0.22 to -0.90 % and a relative standard deviation of  0.09 to  1.90 % depending on the concentration of MCP. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of MCP in various pharmaceutical preparations.