Use of cerium(IV) sulphate in the spectrophotometric determination of paracetamol in pharmaceutical preparations

Abstract

An accurate spectrophotometric method is proposed for the determination of paracetamol. Cerium(IV) sulphate is used to oxidise paracetamol in 5 M H₂SO₄ to p-benzoquinone, which is then determined at 410 nm. The method has been successfully applied to the analysis of commercial pharmaceutical preparations and the results have been statistically compared with those obtained by the official (BP) method.