Validated spectrofluorimetric and spectrophotometric methods for the determination of brimonidine tartrate in ophthalmic solutions via derivatization with NBD-Cl. Application to stability study.

Two simple, selective and accurate methods were developed and validated for the determination of brimonidine tartrate (BT) in pure state and pharmaceutical formulations. Both methods are based on the coupling of the drug with 4-chloro-7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole in borate buffer (pH 8.5) at 70 °C and measurement of the reaction product spectrophotometrically at 407 nm (method I) or spectrofluorimetrically at 528 nm upon excitation at 460 nm (method II). The calibration graphs were rectilinear over the concentration ranges of 1.0-16.0 and 0.1-4.0 µg/mL with lower detection limits of 0.21 and 0.03, and lower quantification limits of 0.65 and 0.09 µg/mL for methods I and II, respectively. Both methods were successfully applied to the analysis of commercial ophthalmic solution with mean recovery of 99.50 ± 1.00 and 100.13 ± 0.71%, respectively. Statistical analysis of the results obtained by the proposed methods revealed good agreement with those obtained using a comparison method. The proposed spectrofluorimetric method was extended to a stability study of BT under different ICH-outlined conditions such as alkaline, acidic, oxidative and photolytic degradation. Furthermore, the kinetics of oxidative degradation of the drug was investigated and the apparent first-order reaction rate constants, half-life times and Arrhenius equation were estimated. The proposed methods are practical and valuable for routine applications in quality control laboratories for the analysis of BT.