Flow injection spectrophotometric determination of andrographolide from Andrographis paniculata

A simple flow injection colourimetric procedure for determining andrographolide was proposed. It is based on the reaction between andrographolide with 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid, resulting in an intense purplish red complex with a suitable absorption at 536 nm. A standard or sample solution was injected into the 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid stream (flow rate of 1.0 ml min−1) which was then merged with potassium hydroxide stream with the same flow rate. Optimum conditions for determining andrographolide were investigated by univariate method. Under the optimum conditions, a linear calibration graph was obtained over the range 5.0–150.0 μg ml−1 and the detection limit was 1.50 μg ml−1 (3σ). The relatives standard deviation of the proposed method calculated from 10 replicate injections of 10.0 and 80.0 μg ml−1 andrographolide were 0.66% and 1.64%, respectively. The sample throughput was 50 h−1. The proposed method has been satisfactorily applied to the determination of andrographolide in herb plant samples.