Spectrophotometric and potentiometric determination of piroxicam and tenoxicam in pharmaceutical preparations.

Two simple and accurate methods are described for the determination of piroxicam and tenoxicam in their pharmaceutical preparations. The spectrophotometric method involves the oxidation of these drugs with potassium iodate in acid medium with the liberation of iodine and subsequent extraction with cyclohexane followed by measuring the absorbance at lambda=522 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range of 0.05-1.1 and 0.05-0.6 mg x ml(-1) for piroxicam and tenoxicam, respectively. The apparent molar absorptivities of the resulting coloured products are found to be 2.7 x 10(3) and 2.5 x 10(3) l mol(-1) x cm(-1), whereas Sandell sensitivities are 0.012 and 0.013 g x cm(-2) for piroxicam and tenoxicam, respectively. The potentiometric method involves the direct titration of both drugs with N-bromosuccinimide in acid medium and the end point is determined potentiometrically using platinum indicator electrode. Piroxicam and tenoxicam can be determined quantitatively in the concentration range of 0.33-3.37 and 0.33-4.08 mg x ml(-1) for tenoxicam and piroxicam, respectively. The standard deviation and relative standard deviation values are found to be ranged from 0.05-0.07 and 0.37-0.98% and 0.025-0.078 and 0.25-1.2% for tenoxicam and piroxicam, respectively. The two methods are accurate within +/-1.0%. Optimum conditions affecting both methods are studied. The proposed methods are applied for the determination of the drugs in pure form and in commercial pharmaceutical preparations.