Simultaneous determination of ascorbic acid and acetylsalicylic acid in pharmaceutical formulations

A direct, simple, and practical first-derivative spectrophotometric method is described for simultaneous determination of ascorbic acid and acetylsalicylic acid. The effects of the solvent, excipients, and spectral variables on the analytical signal were investigated. The drugs were determined simultaneously with a 0.01 M methanolic hydrochloric acid solution as the solvent, and the signals were evaluated directly by using the zero-crossing method at 245.0 and 256.0 nm for acetylsalicylic acid and ascorbic acid, respectively. The method allows the simultaneous determinations of acetylsalicylic acid and ascorbic acid in the ranges of 6.6 x 10(-6) to 1.5 x 10(-4)M and 3.4 x 10(-6) to 2.0 x 10(-4)M, respectively, with standard deviation of <2.0%. The proposed method was applied to determinations of these drugs in tablets.