Determination of amlodipine in pharmaceutical formulations by differential-pulse voltammetry with a glassy carbon electrode.

A differential-pulse voltammetric method was developed for the determination of amlodipine based on the oxidation of the dihydropyridine group on the surface of glassy carbon electrode under stationary and rotating conditions. The experiments were conducted in a supporting electrolyte consisting of 0.2 M KCl, 0.1 M phosphate buffer, and 10% (v/v) methanol during investigation of initial potential and pH effects. No adsorption effect was observed on using an initial potential of 0 mV and the supporting electrolyte solution at pH 5.5 under both stationary and rotating conditions. The factor affecting the voltammetric current was diffusional in the range of 200-1000 rpm for rotating, and 2-40 mV s-1 for stationary conditions up to a concentration of 0.04 mg mL-1 amlodipine. The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantitative (LOQ) for the rotating and stationary techniques were found to be 0.004 and 0.0072 mg mL-1 (for S/N = 3.3) and LOQ 0.012 and 0.022 mg mL-1 (for S/N = 10), respectively. The proposed method was applied to the tablets containing amlodipine and according to the statistical evaluations acceptable results were obtained at the 95% probability level.