A Novel All-Solid-State Levocetirizine-Selective Potentiometric Microsensor

In this study, a novel all-solid-state potentiometric microsensor was developed for the selective and sensitive determination of levocetirizine dihydrochloride (LEV.2HCl) in pharmaceutical drug samples. For this purpose; levocetirizine-tetraphenylborate (LEV-TPB) ion-pair was synthesized using LEV.2HCl and sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB) and the microsensor was developed by using this ion-pair as an ionophore in the structure of the microsensor. The optimum membrane composition of the levocetirizine-selective (LEV-selective) microsensor was determined and the potentiometric performance characteristics were investigated. The detection limit of the proposed microsensor was calculated as $3.5\times 10^{-{7}}$ $\mathrm{mol.L}^{-{1}}$ . The response time of the microsensor was significantly short ( $\le 10$ s). The microsensor showed a super-Nernstian response with a slope of $59.9\pm 0.6$ mV ( ${R}^{{2}}$ : 0.9991) over a wide concentration range of $10^{-{6}}- 10^{-{2}}$ $\mathrm{mol.L}^{-{1}}$ for LEV.2HCl solutions over seven weeks and no significant drift in potentials. The microsensor was determined to have optimum performance in the pH range of 4.0–8.0. The microsensor was successfully used to determine levocetirizine in pharmaceutical samples. The results were statistically compared with the UV-Vis spectroscopy method. The obtained potentiometric results were in good harmony with the results obtained by the UV-Vis spectroscopy method at a confidence level of 95%.