Spectrophotometric Determination of Ampicillin with Sulfanilic Acid by Oxidative Coupling Reaction

Abstract

Sensitive, economic, simple and accurate spectrophotometric method for estimation of ampicillin in bulk and dosage form is described. Ampicillin was oxidized by sodium hypochlorite and coupling with sulfanilic acid in the presence of sodium hydroxide to obtain a stable yellow colored chromogen which exhibit a maximum absorption (λ max ) at 400 nm. The optimum conditions were carefully evaluated .Plot of absorbance against concentration was linear over the range (50-300 µg.ml -1 ). This method was applied to the estimation of ampicillin in pure drug and commercial formulations successfully.