Simultaneous voltammetric determination of paracetamol and ascorbic acid using a boron-doped diamond electrode modified with Nafion and lead films.

The paper describes the fabrication and application of a novel sensor (a boron-doped diamond electrode modified with Nafion and lead films) for the simultaneous determination of paracetamol and ascorbic acid by differential pulse voltammetry. The main advantage of the lead film and polymer covered boron-doped diamond electrode is that the sensitivity of the stripping responses is increased and the separation of paracetamol and ascorbic acid signals is improved due to the modification of the boron-doped diamond surface by the lead layer. Additionally, the repeatability of paracetamol and ascorbic acid signals is improved by the application of the Nafion film coating. In the presence of oxygen, linear calibration curves were obtained in a wide concentration range from 5×10(-7) to 2×10(-4) mol L(-1) for paracetamol and from 1×10(-6) to 5×10(-4) mol L(-1) for ascorbic acid. The analytical utility of the differential pulse voltammetric method elaborated was tested in the assay of paracetamol and ascorbic acid in commercially available pharmaceutical formulations and the method was validated by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector.