Voltammetric determination of paracetamol in tablet formulation using Fe (III) doped zeolite-graphite composite modified GCE

Although paracetamol is known to have excellent safety profile at recommended therapeutic doses, health effects are also reported at acute overdoses. A sensitive and selective voltammetric method using Fe(III) encapsulated zeolite/graphite composite modified glassy carbon electrode is presented in this work for the determination of paracetamol in tablet formulations. In contrast to the unmodified electrode, a fourfold increase of cyclic voltammetric oxidative peak current paralleled by reduced potential difference ( ΔE p ) at the modified electrode confirmed electrocatalytic property of the modifier towards oxidation of paracetamol. The oxidative peak current showed linear dependence on concentration range 0.5–200 μM with R 2 and LOD of 0.9989 and 0.01 μM, respectively. The paracetamol content of four brands of tablet samples was found in the range 95.95 ± 0.23–103 ± 0.52% of the theoretical values. Recovery results between 94.54 ± 0.82 and 102 ± 0.34% for spiked paracetamol in tablet samples validated the selectivity of the method for determination of paracetamol in real samples.