Study of acetaminophen by parallel incident spectroelectrochemistry

The oxidation process of acetaminophen at a platinum electrode was investigated by parallel incident spectroelectrochemistry (SEC). The formal potential (E0′) and the number of electrons transferred (n) were determined. The results revealed that the acetaminophen redox reaction was a diffusion-controlled one-electron quasireversible process, which was also confirmed by cyclic voltammetric experiments. The first step in the oxidation was a one-electron transfer reaction, first forming a free radical observed and proved by using Zn2+ as stabilizer, then this free radical underwent a disproportionation reaction. Based on this, the content of acetaminophen in Suxiao Shangfeng Capsules was determined without pretreatment. The linear range of acetaminophen quantization was 5 × 10−5 − 2 × 10−4mol/1 with a correlation coefficient of 0.9985. The results showed that this method was simple and accurate.