Electrochemical Discrimination of Salbutamol from Its Excipients in VentolinTM at Nanoporous Gold Microdisc Arrays

The emergence of specific drug–device combination products in the inhalable pharmaceutical industry demands more sophistication of device functionality in the form of an embedded sensing platform to increase patient safety and extend patent coverage. Controlling the nebuliser function at a miniaturised, integrated electrochemical sensing platform with rapid response time and supporting novel algorithms could deliver such a technology offering. Development of a nanoporous gold (NPG) electrochemical sensor capable of creating a unique fingerprint signal generated by inhalable pharmaceuticals provided the impetus for our study of the electrooxidation of salbutamol, which is the active bronchodilatory ingredient in Ventolin^TM formulations. It was demonstrated that, at NPG-modified microdisc electrode arrays, salbutamol is distinguishable from the chloride excipient present at 0.0154 M using linear sweep voltammetry and can be detected amperometrically. In contrast, bare gold microdisc electrode arrays cannot afford such discrimination, as the potential for salbutamol oxidation and chloride adsorption reactions overlap. The discriminative power of NPG originates from the nanoconfinement effect for chloride in the internal pores of NPG, which selectively enhances the electron transfer kinetics of this more sluggish reaction relative to that of the faster, diffusion-controlled salbutamol oxidation. Sensing was performed at a fully integrated three-electrode cell-on-chip using Pt as a quasi-reference electrode.

Differential pulse voltammetric determination of salbutamol sulfate in syrup pharmaceutical formulation using poly(4-amino-3-hydroxynaphthalene sulfonic acid) modified glassy carbon electrode

A new method for determination of salbutamol sulfate has been developed using poly(4-amino-3-hydroxynaphthalene sulfonic acid/GCE. Cyclic voltammetric investigation of the electrochemical behavior of salbutamol sulfate at the polymer modified glassy carbon unveiled electrocatalytic activity of the modifier towards irreversible oxidation of salbutamol sulfate. Dependence of peak current predominantly on scan rate than on square root of scan rate, and peak potential shift with pH demonstrated that oxidation of salbutamol sulfate at the polymer modified electrode follows adsorption reaction kinetics with proton participation.

Under optimized solution and differential pulse voltammetric parameters, the oxidative peak current showed linear dependence on salbutamol sulfate concentration in the range 0.2 to 8 μM with method detection limit (3s/m) and determination coefficient (R²) of 6.8 × 10⁻⁸ M and 0.99786, respectively. Low method detection limit, relatively wide linear range, and recovery results of spiked standard salbutamol sulfate in syrup samples in the range 96.7–98.9% validated the method for determination of salbutamol sulfate in pharmaceutical formulations.

Differential pulse voltammetric analysis of salbutamol sulfate syrup formulation for its salbutamol sulfate content revealed 98.8 to 99.3% of the labeled value confirming the applicability of the developed method for determination of salbutamol sulfate in real samples.