Voltammetric determination of famotidine on a disposable pencil graphite electrode

Abstract

The present paper describes the use of a disposable pencil graphite electrode (PGE) for the voltammetric determination of famotidine. Cyclic voltammetric studies using different supporting electrolytes emphasized an irreversible oxidation of famotidine on the PGE. The electrode process is diffusion-controlled and pH-dependent. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) in phosphate buffer solution of pH 6.81 was employed for famotidine's quantitative determination. The anodic peak current of famotidine varies linearly with the analyte concentration in the range 4.72 $\times $ 10$^{-7}$--4.95 $\times $ 10$^{-4}$ M. Detection and quantification limits were 1.51 $\times $ 10$^{-7}$ M and 5.04 $\times $ 10$^{-7}$ M famotidine, respectively. The developed DPV method using the inexpensive, disposable PGE was successfully applied to the simple and rapid determination of famotidine from pharmaceuticals.