Determination of reserpine in commercial tablets by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection

A procedure is presented for the determination of reserpine in commercial tablets by liquid chromatography (LC). The sample is extracted with methanol if only reserpine is present. If the sample contains other ingredients, CHCI3 is used for extraction from aqueous suspension; the CHCI3 is subsequently completely evaporated in the presence of methanol. For LC, a normal phase column, methanol as the eluting solvent, and a fluorometric detector are used. A recovery study indicated that no measurable degradation of reserpine occurs during evaporation of the CHCI3 extract. Several commercial tablets containing reserpine alone or in combination with other ingredients were analyzed by the proposed method, and the results were compared with those obtained by the current official USP methods for reserpine.