Novel determination of nabumetone, a cox-2 inhibitor precursor via its 4-carboxyl-2,6-dinitrobenzene diazonium (CDNBD) derived AZO dye.

A novel colorimetric determination ofnabumetone in tablets has been developed. The assay is based on chemical derivatization (aromatic ring derivatization technique) using newly developed 4-carboxyl-2,6-dinitrobenzene diazonium (CDNBD) ion as the chromogenic derivatizing reagent and resultant formation of azo dye.Optimization studies established an optimal reaction time of 10 minutes at 30 degrees C after mixing the drug/reagent mixture in a vortex mixer for 10 sec. A new absorption maximum (ë(max)) was found at 470 nm, which was selected as analytical wavelength. The assays were linear over 1-6 microg/ml of nabumetone and the optimal reaction required a 2:1 reagent/drug stoichiometric ratio. The developed method has a low limit of detection of 0.39 microg/ml, and is reproducible (1.81% RSD). It has been applied successfully to the assay of nabumetone tablets and is of equivalent accuracy (p > 0.05) with the official (B.P) HPLC method. The new method is simple, has the main advantage of employing a more affordable instrumentation and could find application in routine in-process quality control of nabumetone tablets.