Oxidation of tricyclic antidepressant drugs with chloramine-T in acidic solutions: kinetic, mechanistic and thermodynamic studies.

The kinetics of the oxidation of two tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) namely, imipramine (IMP) and clomipramine (CLM) with sodium N-chloro-p-toluenesulfonamide or chloramine-T (CAT) in HClO4 medium was studied at 300 K. The two reactions followed identical kinetics with a first-order dependence of rate on [CAT]o and fractional order dependence on [TCA]o. The reaction is catalyzed by H(+) ions with a fractional order dependence.