Study of acetaminophen by parallel incident spectroelectrochemistry

Abstract

The oxidation process of acetaminophen at a platinum electrode was investigated by parallel incident spectroelectrochemistry (SEC). The formal potential ( E 0′) and the number of electrons transferred ( n) were determined. The results revealed that the acetaminophen redox reaction was a diffusion-controlled one-electron quasireversible process, which was also confirmed by cyclic voltammetric experiments. The first step in the oxidation was a one-electron transfer reaction, first forming a free radical observed and proved by using Zn 2+ as stabilizer, then this free radical underwent a disproportionation reaction. Based on this, the content of acetaminophen in Suxiao Shangfeng Capsules was determined without pretreatment. The linear range of acetaminophen quantization was 5 × 10 −5 − 2 × 10 −4mol/1 with a correlation coefficient of 0.9985. The results showed that this method was simple and accurate.