Gold electrodes from compact discs modified with platinum for amperometric determination of ascorbic acid in pharmaceutical formulations

A simple, rapid and precise amperometric method has been developed for quantification of ascorbic acid (AA) in pharmaceutical formulations using flow-injection analysis (FIA). A slice of recordable compact disc (CD) modified by electrodeposition of platinum was employed as the working electrode. The proposed flow system allows determinations in the 1 μmol l−1 of the analyte and enables 90 determinations per h, employing only 150-μl sample. The method permits the direct quantification of ascorbic acid in many pharmaceutical products, avoiding cumbersome processes as previous separations, solvent extraction or sample filtration. This new procedure was applied to commercial pharmaceutical tablets and the results obtained were identical than the ones obtained by the classical iodometric method. The calibration plots for freshly prepared ascorbic acid standards were highly linear in the concentration range of 1–10 μmol l−1 with a relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) <1%. For all real samples studied, the deviations were situated between 0.5 and 8.7%.