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Iodometric determination of ascorbic acid in bulk and Vitamin-C tablets using

Potassium Iodate

Article · June 2020

DOI: 10.15406/ppij.2020.08.00291

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 Pharmacy & Pharmacology International Journal

Research Article Open Access

Iodometric determination of ascorbic acid in bulk

and Vitamin-C tablets using Potassium Iodate
Abstract Volume 8 Issue 3 - 2020

Ascorbic acid is one of the major water soluble vitamin and many health benefits have
Sowmya PT,1 Anitha Sudhir,1 K M Lokanatha
been attributed to ascorbic acid such as antioxidant, anti-atherogenic,immunomodulator
anti-carcinogenic etc. It plays a vital role in the biosynthesis of collagen, carnitine and
Rai,2 HN Deepakumari3
1
Department of Chemistry,Vidyavardhaka College of
neurotransmitters. As humans can not produce ascorbic acid due to the lack of an enzyme
Engineering, India
gulonolactone oxidase, it has to be supplemented mainly through fruits, vegetables and 2
Department of Studies in Chemistry, University of Mysore,
tablets. In this present work, we have reported a simple, cost effective, reliable titrimetric India
method for the estimation of ascorbic acid present in commercially available Vit-C tablets 3
Department of Chemistry, Bharathi College, India
and also the determination of molecular weight of ascorbic acid. The method involves
the oxidative dehydrogenation of ascorbic acid by potassium iodate followed by the Correspondence: Sowmya PT, Department of Chemistry,
determination of unreacted potassium iodate by iodometry. Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering, Mysuru-570002
Karnataka, India, Tel +919008196715,
Keywords: ascorbic acid, Vitamin-C tablets, molecular weight, potassium iodate, Email
iodometric method
Received: May 01, 2020 | Published: June 10, 2020

Introduction completion of the reaction, unreacted Potassium iodate is determined

by iodometry. By carrying out a blank experiment simultaneously, the
Ascorbic acid is one of the water soluble vitamins. It is widely amount of potassium iodate consumed is determined. As the overall
distributed in both plants and animals and its role in disease reaction requires one mole of CAT per molecule of ascorbic acid,
prevention and cure.1-3 Most of the plants and animals synthesize which is equivalent to one mole of iodine, the molecular weight ‘m’
ascorbic acid from D-glucose or D-galactose. It is used for the of the ascorbic acid is determined using the equation (1):
vitamination of various types of food and beverages. Ascorbic acid
is widely, especially in the pharmaceutical preparation as tablets, 2000W
m= (1)
capsules, crystalline powder, effervescent tablets,chewable tablets (V1 − V2 ) M
and liquid form and in the chemical analysis. Various methods have
been reported in the literature for the determination of ascorbic acid where M- molarity of sodium thiosulphate, V1 and V2- volume of
like potentiometric,4 reductometric,5 thermometric,6 colorimetric,7,8 sodium thiosulphate consumed for experimental and blank titration.
paper chromatograpy,9 Spectrophotometry,10 Aurelia Magdalena W- weight of ascorbic acid/ tablet taken.
Pisoschi reported the ascorbic acid determination in commercial Determination of molecular weight of ascorbic acid.
fruit juice samples by cyclic voltammetry.11 Senon reported
bromochlorohydantoin as titrant for the potentiometric estimation An accurately weighed (20-60 mg) sample of an ascorbic acid
of ascorbic acid.12 Mohammed Idaan Hassan AL Majidi reported the was dissolved in distill water (10 ml) in Erlenmeyer flask. To this, a
determination of ascorbic acid in various fruit and vegetable by UV- solution 0.01 mol of potassium iodate (40 ml) was added. The reaction
spectrophotometry method.13,14 Earlier Rai et al successfully utilized mixture was shaken well and kept aside at room temperature for about
chloramine-T for the determination of molecular weight of amino 30 min, after which 2N sulphuric acid (1 ml), 10% potassium iodide
acids and ascorbic acid.15 For the estimation of ascorbic acid we have (1 ml) and water (2 ml) were added and liberated iodine was titrated
developed a simple titrimetric method using potassium iodate which against standard sodium thiosulphate solution (0.01 M) using starch
is presented in this paper. The method reported makes use of the fact as an indicator. In a similar way, a blank titration was conducted
that ascorbic acid is known to undergo oxidative dehydrogenation by without adding ascorbic acid or ascorbic acid containing vitamin-C
potassium iodate to dehydroascorbic acid involving one molecules of tablets. From the difference in the volume of sodium thiosulphate
chloramine-T per molecule of ascorbic acid. solution consumed, the molecular weight ‘m’ was calculated using
equation (1)
Reagents
Estimation of ascorbic acid in pharmaceutical vitamin
All the common reagents procured from commercial supplies
tablets
were used as such without any purification. Distilled water was used
throughout the experiment. Vitamin-C tablets containing Ascorbic A known amount of sample in the range of 10-60 mg of well-
acid in the range of 100-500 mg were used. Potassium iodate and powdered vitamin tablets containg ascorbic acid in the range of 100-
Ascorbic acid procured were of Analytical grade reagents. 500 mg was dissolved in distilled water (10 ml) in an Erlenmeyer
flask and then a solution of 0.01 mol of potassium iodate (40 ml)
Experimental procedure was added. The reaction mixture was shaken well and kept aside at
In a typical experiment, a known excess of standard solution of room temperature for about 30 min followed by the addition of 2N
potassium iodate is added to a known amount of ascorbic acid. After sulfuric acid (1 ml), 10% potassium iodide (1 ml) and water (2 ml) and

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©2020 Sowmya et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.
 Copyright:
Iodometric determination of ascorbic acid in bulk and Vitamin-C tablets using Potassium Iodate ©2020 Sowmya et al. 160

the liberated iodine was titrated against standard sodium phosphate in vitamin-C tablets. The method reported here is much simpler than
solution (0.01M) using starch as an indicator. Similarly, a blank the literature method. It can also be observed that by this method the
titration was conducted without adding ascorbic acid or ascorbic acid standard deviation for the theoretical and experimental values was
containing vitamin-C tablets. From the difference in the volume of less than 1 with respect to the molecular weight of the ascorbic acid
sodium thiosulphate solution consumed, the amount of ascorbic acid (Table 1).
‘W’ present in vitamin-C tablets was calculated using the following
The relative percentage errors with respect to the amount of
equation:
ascorbic acid present in vitamin-C tablets were found to be less than
m ( V1 − V2 ) M 2% and are given in Table 2. (The relative error was calculated from
W= (2)
2000 the experimental values and the amount of ascorbic present was
specified by the manufacturers of the pharmaceutical tablets).
where M- molarity of sodium thiosulphate, V1 and V2 –volume of
sodium thiosulphate consumed for experimental and blank titration, Reaction Mechanism involved is shown in the Scheme 1. From the
m-molecular weight of the ascorbic acid. mechanism, it is evident that the reactive site involved in the attack
of potassium iodate is the ene-diol group. This group is more reactive
Results and discussion than other functional groups. Therefore, in the presence of other
materials, potassium iodate first reacts with ascorbic acid and the rest
The method describes the determination of molecular weight of
needs more time to react under the experimental condition. Hence, we
ascorbic acid and estimation of the amount of ascorbic acid present
have not found any interference of the other foreign materials.
Table 1 Molecular weight of ascorbic acid (theoretical molecular weight of ascorbic acid is 176.13)

Experimental values

Time (min) Trial number Average Standard deviation

1 2 3 4 5 6

176.47 176.4 176.37 176.45 175.9 175.7 176.12 0.34

30
(30.0) (40.0) (50.10) (37.30) (58.04) (39.52)

7 8 9 10 11 12

176.05 176.3 176.2 176.25 175.98 176.1 176.15 0.12

30
(52.06) (49.70) (55.02) (46.70) (43.50) (28.60)    

*The values given in the brackets were the amount of ascorbic acid taken in each trial

Table 2 The amount of ascorbic found in pharmaceutical tablets containing ascorbic acid

Name of Trial Amount Amount Relative Name of Amount Amount Relative

the tablet No. taken (mg) Found (mg) error* (%) the tablet taken (mg) found (mg) error* (%)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 51.26 51.02 0.46 Limcee 58 58.07 0.12

2 38.75 38.55 0.52 64.02 64.2 0.28

3 33.11 33.34 0.69 35.7 35.65 0.14

Celin
4 41.39 41.05 0.82 46 46.45 0.97

5 48.64 48.98 0.69 55 55.34 0.61

6 46.82 46.5 0.68 67 67.15 0.22

1 47.1 47.22 0.25 Becosule 50 50.24 0.48

2 38.16 38.4 0.63 54.2 54.34 0.26

Cobadex 3 42 42.34 0.8 39.08 39.17 0.23

Forte 4 34.79 34.95 0.46 45.87 45.95 0.17

5 51.75 51.46 0.56 43.3 43.67 0.85

6 39.16 39.25 0.22 33 33.23 0.69

Citation: Sowmya PT, Sudhir A, Rai KML, et al. Iodometric determination of ascorbic acid in bulk and Vitamin-C tablets using Potassium Iodate. Pharm
Pharmacol Int J. 2020;8(3):159‒161. DOI: 10.15406/ppij.2020.08.00291
 Copyright:
Iodometric determination of ascorbic acid in bulk and Vitamin-C tablets using Potassium Iodate ©2020 Sowmya et al. 161

Table Continued...
Name of Trial Amount Amount Relative Name of Amount Amount Relative
the tablet No. taken (mg) Found (mg) error* (%) the tablet taken (mg) found (mg) error* (%)

1 42.67 43 0.77

2 33.07 33.17 0.3

3 45.69 45.76 0.15

Supradyn
4 38.99 38.87 0.3

5 31.22 31.29 0.22

6 32 32.3 0.94        
*Relative error was calculated with respect to the difference of experimental values with the amount present in the tablets:

Relative error = (calculated value-experimental)×100/calculated value

2KIO3 + H2SO4 2HIO3 + K2SO4

HO
OH OH O O O
O + HO-I I
O O OH
OH O
OH

O
+ HOI=O
O Iodous acid

Conclusion 7. Jagota SK, Dani HM. A new colorimetric technique for the
estimation of vitamin C using Folin phenol reagent. Analytical
From the results of this work, we conclude that this titrimetric Biochemistry. 1982;127(1):178–182.
method determines ascorbic acid instantly, thereby greatly reduces the
time of determination with precision and cost-effective.This method 8. Elnenaey ES, Soliman R. A sensitive colorimetric method for
of determination of ascorbic acid in multivitamin tablets can be a estimation of ascorbic acid. Talanta. 1979;26(12):1164–1166.
method of quantitative determination of ascorbic acid. 9. Yu-Tuan Chen, Isherwood FA, Mapson LW. Quantitative
estimation of ascorbic acid and related substances in biological
Acknowledgments extracts by separation on a paper chromatogram. Journal of the
One of the authors (SPT) is grateful to Vidyavardhaka College of Society of Chemical Industry.1953;55(5):821–823.
Engineering and the University of Mysore for the lab facilities.
10. Hewitt EJ, Dickes GJ. Spectrophotometric measurements on
Conflicts of interest ascorbic acid and their use for the estimation of ascorbic acid and
dehydroascorbic acid in plant tissues. Biochem J. 1961;78(2):384–
Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. 391.

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Citation: Sowmya PT, Sudhir A, Rai KML, et al. Iodometric determination of ascorbic acid in bulk and Vitamin-C tablets using Potassium Iodate. Pharm
Pharmacol Int J. 2020;8(3):159‒161. DOI: 10.15406/ppij.2020.08.00291

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