Development and Validation of UV Spectrophotometric Method for the Quantitative Estimation of Quercetin in Bulk Followed by Its Solubility Studies

Abstract

The current study is focused on the ultraviolet spectrophotometric technique for the method development and validation of quercetin following the International Conference on Harmonisation guidelines for quantitative analysis. The developed and validated UV method is then applied to the solubility studies of quercetin in various solvents. The stock solution was prepared and further scanned to determine the wavelength at which the solution showed maximum absorbance (λ_max). The λ_max of quercetin was detected at 376 nm. Using various criteria such as precision, linearity, accuracy, the limit of quantification, the limit of detection, and ruggedness, the developed method was further validated. The sample solutions of the drug were made in the concentration having a range of linearity from 2 to 10μg/mL at a selected wavelength of 376 nm. The linear regression analysis data revealed a complementary linear relationship with the value of the correlation coefficient at 0.9997. The recovery experiment, which was carried out at three levels of 80, 100, and 120%, was used to examine the accuracy of the devised method utilizing percentage recovery (96.78– 99.18). The precision parameter for validation was carried out by performing intraday and interday variations. Two experts examined the ruggedness. Among all the solvents used, methanol was observed to show the highest solubility of quercetin (111.785 ± 0.263 μg/mL). The developed method was established to make it modest, safe, definite, sensitive, rapid, suitable, and economical for the quantitative evaluation of quercetin. However, the values observed for limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantitation (LOQ) were higher (i.e., 0.1805 and 0.5470, respectively) for the UV method than for the previously reported expensive and sophisticated RP-HPLC method (reported LOD and LOQ were 0.00488 and 0.03906 μg/mL, respectively) and HPLC method (reported LOD and LOQ were 0.05 and 0.1 μg/mL, respectively). However, we were able to develop an accurate, cost-effective, and precise method that can be utilized for routine quality control analysis of quercetin.