Spectrophotometric Determination of Zolmitriptan in Bulk Drug and Pharmaceuticals Using Vanillin as a Reagent

An accurate and precise spectrophotometric method is presented for the determination of zolmitriptan (ZMT) based on the formation of a red color product with vanillin in presence of concentrated H2SO4, with the chromogen being measured at 580 nm. The reaction proceeds quantitatively at room temperature in 10 min. The calibration curve is linear over the range 5.0–90.0 μg mL−1 and described by the regression equation with a regression coefficient of 0.9994 . The calculated molar absorptivity and Sandell sensitivity values are 3.3 × 103 L mol−1 cm−1 and 0.0872 μg cm−2, respectively. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) calculated as per ICH guidelines are 1.26 and 3.81 μg mL−1, respectively. The within-day accuracy expressed as relative error was better than 1.78% with precision (RSD) ranging from 0.83 to 1.45%. The between-day accuracy ranged from 1.21 to 1.84% with a precision less than 1.66%. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of one brand of tablet containing zolmitriptan. The results obtained were in agreement with those obtained by published reference method. The accuracy was also checked by placebo blank and synthetic mixture analyses besides recovery study via standard addition procedure.