Improved assay for mixtures of citrate and citric acid in systemic alkalizer solutions

A modification of the USP method for the assay of systemic alkalizer solutions containing mixtures of citrate and citric acid is presented; it involves two titrations and ion-exchange chromatography. A diluted sample is tritiated with 0.02 N NaOH to find the free citric acid content. The eluate from cation-exchange chromatography of an equal volume of diluted sample is titrated with 0.02 N NaOH to assay for total citric acid. Subtracting the results of the first titration from the second provides the citrate content. Synthetic mixtures of potassium citrate-citric acid, potassium citrate-sodium citrate-citric acid, and sodium citrate-citric acid were prepared and assayed. The method was applied to commercially available preparations. The proposed method eliminates some significant errors of the compendial method, and the accuracy and reproducibility are equal or better than those obtained with the compendial method. Theoretically, the result obtained by the compendial method does not necessarily give the citrate content.