Spectrofluorimetric determination of Trimethoprim in pharmaceutical preparations

The development of a spectrofluorimetric method for the determination of trimethoprim according to the reaction between O-phthalaldehyde (OPA) in highly alkaline media, and 2-mercaptoethanol (2ME) and this reaction gives fluorescent product measured at (458) nm when excited at (342) nm. The optimization of the analytical parameters that influence intensity was investigated. The intensity of fluorescence of the formed product was linearly related to the concentration of trimethoprim in the (100-1200) ng mL(-1) range. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were estimated to be (22.54) ng mL(-1) and (75.15) ng mL(-1) respectively. The utility of the proposed methods was successfully verified by analysis of trimethoprim in pure and real pharmaceutical preparations with high accuracy, the recovery percentages Re%, were found to be (100.5) % and (99.76) % for pure drug and pharmaceutical preparations respectively.