UV Spectrophotometric Method for Estimation of Pure Nicotine

Background: Nicotine is an alkaloid that has high addictive and toxic properties. It can be found in all parts of tobacco plants (Nicotiana tobacum). Objective: The aim of investigation was to develop a simple UV-visible Spectrophotometric method for the determination of Nicotine in its pure form further to validate the developed method. Material and Methods: Nicotine was estimated using UV Visible double beam spectrophotometer at the wavelength of maximum absorption (261 nm) in Methanol. The drug was characterized by boiling point, and Infra-Red (IR) techniques. The analysis of the drug was carried out by novel UV-Visible method which was validated analytical parameters like linearity, precision, accuracy, robustness, ruggedness per guidelines laid down by International Conference on Harmonization (ICH). Result: By the interpretation of spectra the drug was confirmed. The linear response for concentration range of 2–12 µg/ml of Nicotine was recorded with regression coefficient 0.998. The accuracy was found between 98–101 %. Precision for intraday and interday was found to be 0.886 and 1.06 respectively, which are within the limits. To establish the sensitivity of the method, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were determined which were found to be 0.422 µg/ml and 2.513 µg/ml respectively. Conclusion: The UV method developed and validated for nicotine drug was found to be linear, accurate, precise and economical which can be used for the testing of its pharmaceutical formulations. Keywords: Nicotine Estimation, Spectrophotometric Method, Analytical Method Development, Validation Parameters, Pharmaceutical Analysis, Linearity and Precision, LOD and LOQ Determination