A study of the determination of the hypertensive drug captopril by square wave cathodic adsorptive stripping voltammetry

In this work, the determination of captopril (CPL) was studied by square wave cathodic adsorptive stripping voltammetry (SWCAdSV) on a hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE). CPL was adsorptively preconcentrated on the mercury surface as a sparingly soluble mercury salt under stirring of the solution and then the accumulated species was reduced by a cathodic square wave voltammetric scan. The reduction current was related to the CPL concentration in the sample. The chemical and instrumental parameters affecting the response were investigated and optimized for the CPL determination. The calibration curve was linear from 0.5 to 180 microg l(-1) of CPL (depending on the preconcentration time), the limit of detection at a S/N ratio of 3 was 0.5 microg l(-1) with 300 s of preconcentration and the relative standard deviation was 3.2% at the 20 microg l(-1) level (with 120 s of preconcentration, n=8). The method was applied to the determination of CPL in two pharmaceutical formulations with recoveries of 97.9 and 98.8%. Finally, the potential for applying the proposed method to the determination of CPL in biological media is briefly discussed.