Second-derivative synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy for the simultaneous determination of fluphenazine hydrochloride and nortriptyline hydrochloride in pharmaceutical preparations.

A rapid, simple, and highly sensitive second-derivative synchronous fluorimetric (SDSF) method has been developed for the simultaneous analysis of binary mixtures of fluphenazine hydrochloride (FLZ) and nortriptyline hydrochloride (NTP) in their co-formulated tablets. The method is based upon measurement of the native fluorescence of these drugs at constant wavelength difference (Deltalambda) = 120 nm in acetic acid. The different experimental parameters affecting the fluorescence intensity of the studied drugs were carefully studied and optimized. The fluorescence-concentration plots were rectilinear over the range of 0.25-3.0 and 1-10 microg/ml for FLZ and NTP respectively, with lower detection limits (LOD) of 0.05 and 0.18 microg/ml and quantitation limits of 0.15 and 0.53 microg/ml for FLZ and NTP respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of the studied compounds in their synthetic mixtures and in commercial co-formulated tablets. The results obtained were in good agreement with those obtained by the reference methods.