Utility of dansyl chloride for the establishment of a sensitive spectrofluorimetric approach for estimating midodrine hydrochloride: application to content uniformity testing

A new, straightforward spectrofluorimetric approach with high sensitivity was established for determining midodrine hydrochloride based on derivatizing this drug through its reaction with 5-(dimethylamino)naphthalene-1-sulfonyl chloride (dansyl chloride). The highly fluorescent product was extracted with methylene chloride, and then its emission was measured at 532 nm after excitation at 339 nm. The reaction was conducted in aqueous medium containing 0.1 M borate buffer (pH 8.2). The results showed that the proposed method is sensitive with high linearity in the range from 0.1 to 3 μg mL(−1). The lower limits of detection and quantitation were 29 and 88 ng mL(−1), respectively. Furthermore, the proposed approach was analytically assessed by applying the ICH guidelines. The suggested approach was effectively utilized for the estimation of the medicine in its marketable tablet formulations with excellent recovery and without any interfering effect from excipients. Moreover, the presented approach was utilized to test the content uniformity of commercial tablets following the USP guidelines.