Two derivative spectrophotometric methods for the simultaneous determination of lovastatin combined with three antioxidants.

A zero crossing and an algorithm bivariate calibration derivative method for the simultaneous determination of lovastatin combined separately with three antioxidants (ascorbic acid, quercetin and gallic acid) in synthetic mixtures are described. The aqueous or methanolic solutions obeyed Beer's law in the concentration ranges of 3.20-17.36 microg/ml for lovastatin, 1.76-8.80 microg/ml for ascorbic acid, 1.41-7.04 microg/ml for gallic acid and 1.84-9.20 microg/ml for quercetin, for both methods, respectively. In the second derivative (2D) zero crossing method measurements were carried out at 238.4 nm for lovastatin and 265.6 nm for ascorbic acid, 247.7 nm for lovastatin and 281.1 nm for quercetin, 251.8 nm for lovastatin and 267.6 nm for gallic acid. In the first derivative (1D) bivariate spectrophotometric method an optimum pair of wavelengths was chosen for the determination of different binary mixtures. The proposed procedures were successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of lovastatin and different antioxidants in mixtures with high percentage of recovery, 98.3-100.4% for lovastatin, 98.3-98.6% for ascorbic acid, 99.0-99.8% for quercetin and 100.5-101.1% for gallic acid and good precision. In addition, the results from the above procedures were verified by using partial least-squares (PLS) multivariate calibration method.