Spectrofluorimetric Determination of Citalopram and Desvenlafaxine Antidepressant Drugs in Micellar Medium

Abstract

A spectrofluorimetric method for the determination of antidepressant drugs namely citalopram (CIT) and desvenlafaxine (DSV) in tablets has been developed. The method is based on native fluorescence of these drugs in micellar solution of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The wavelengths of excitation and emission were 240 nm and 595 nm for citalopram and 225 nm and 600 nm for desvenlafaxine. The method allows the determination of 0.8-8.0 μg mL -1 of citalopram and 0.4-4.0 μg mL -1 of desvenlafaxine in presence of 18 mM SDS, in an acetate-HCl buffer solution of pH=5. The limits of detection (LOD) were 0.043 and 0.034 μg mL -1 for CIT and DSV, respectively. The fluorescence properties of CIT and DSV in micellar media were also studied. This method has been successfully applied to determination of the two drugs in tablets with satisfactory results.