First-derivative spectrophotometric determination of salbutamol in pharmaceutical preparations

The development of a first-order derivative spectrophotometric assay of salbutamol as a single-component and in combination with beclomethasone dipropionate in pharmaceutical formulations is described. The method eliminates the interference of tablet excipients and allows the determination of both components without their previous separation. The precision of the method for the assay of salbutamol in tablets was 1.0% with an average recovery of 98.8%. In the assay of the two-component preparation, the precision was 1.1%, with average recoveries for salbutamol of 99.3% and for beclomethasone dipropionate of 99.4%.