Determination of possible impurities in piracetam using FTIR spectroscopy.

Piracetam (2-oxo-1-pyrrolidine acetamide (PAm)) may contain some structurally related impurities deriving from synthesis or degradation, mainly 2-oxo-1-pyrrolidine acetic acid (PAc). A rapid and sensitive Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometric method was developed for determination of possible impurities in piracetam. The results showed that the method was effective for the simultaneous determination of PAc in piracetam by FTIR spectrophotometry and may be a real alternative to HPLC. The apparent spectral resolution was first enhanced by using the Fourier self-deconvolution (FSD) method and the profiles were then fully deconvoluted by using a curve fitting procedure. FSD method followed by curve fitting allowed to evaluate quantitatively the areas under the pyrrolidine acetic acid peaks. Mixtures of known composition were used as standards to minimise errors due to the presence of both compounds in the same mixture. The detection limit of pyrrolidine acetic acid was estimated to be 0.1% with respect to piracetam.