Spectrophotometric determination of chlordiazepoxide and nitrazepam.

The use of ethyl acetoacetate in the spectrophotometric determination of chlordiazepoxide and nitrazepam has been investigated. The procedure is based on coupling the diazotized drugs with ethyl acetoacetate, which possesses an active methylene group. The products have absorption maxima at 408 and 482 nm and apparent molar absorptivities of 2.74 x 10(4) and 4.11 x 10(4) 1.mole(-1).cm(-1), respectively. The method is simple, highly sensitive and suitable for 1-16 mug/ml concentrations of the two compounds, with mean recoveries of 100.3 +/- 1.2 and 99.8 +/- 1.0% respectively.