Ultrasensitive and simple method for determination of n-acetyl-l-cysteine in drug formulations using a diamond sensor

Abstract

A boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrode coupled to flow injection analysis (FIA) was firstly developed for determination of N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) in drug formulations. The effects of experimental parameters including pH, applied potential and scan rate on the response were investigated. FIA amperometry was applied as an automatic method for the quantitative detection of trace amounts of NAC. A wide linear range of 0.5-50μmol/L and a low detection limit of 10nmol/L were obtained. The results of amperometric determinations show a very good reproducibility, and the RSD for the measurement based on 10 measurements was <3.7% and <4.1% for intra- and inter-day, respectively. The benefits of the proposed method are fast, simple, sensitive and no requirement of complicated operational steps. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.