Spectrophotometric determination of ciprofloxacin in pure form and in tablets through charge-transfer complexation reactions

Three simple, quick and sensitive spectrophotometric methods are described for the determination of ciprofloxacin. The methods are based on the reaction of this drug as ann-electron donor with 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-p-benzoquinone (DDQ), 7,7,8,8,-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) andp-chloranil (CL) as π-acceptors to give highly coloured complex species. The coloured products are quantitated spectrophotometrically at 460, 843 and 550 nm for DDQ, TCNQ and CL, respectively. Optimization of the different experimental conditions is described. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration ranges 5–50, 1.5–15 and 20–200 μg ml−1 ciprofloxacin, but the concentration ranges for best accuracy are 10–48, 2.5–15 and 35– 195 μg ml−1 of drug for DDQ, TCNQ and CL, respectively. The relative standard deviations are less than 1.5%. Applications of the suggested methods to ciprofloxacin tablets are presented and compared with the USP method. The stability constants of the 1∶1 DDQ and CL complexes were 1.086 × 104 and 2.581 × 104 lmol−1, respectively, whereas for the 1∶2 TCNQ complex it was 3.62 × 1081. mol−1.