Development of a simple UV-spectrophotometric method for the determination of lansoprazole and study of its degradation profile

A UV-spectrophotometric method is described for the determination of lansoprazole (LAN). The method is based on the measurement of the absorbance of LAN solution in acetonitrile at 281 nm. The system obeyed Beer's law over the concentration range of 1.25-25.0 µg/mL. The degradation behavior of LAN was investigated under dry heat treatment, UV-degradation, acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis and oxidation; and found to degrade extensively under acid hydrolysis, alkali hydrolysis and oxidation. The method was applied to the determination of LAN in capsule and the results were statistically compared with those of the reference method by applying Student's t-test and F-test.