Electrochemical oxidation of luteolin at a glassy carbon electrode and its application in pharmaceutical analysis.

Luteolin is a flavonoid reported to occur widely in many medicinal plants. The electrochemical behavior of luteolin was studied in phosphate buffer solution (PBS) of pH 4.0 at a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetric method (DPV). The results indicated the well-defined redox peak of luteolin which was involving two electrons and two protons was observed and the electrode process is adsorption-controlled. The charge transfer coefficient (alpha) was calculated as 0.66. The relationships between oxidation peak current and the concentration of luteolin are linear in the range of 1.0 x 10(-8) - 1.0 x 10(-6) M by DPV method. The detection limit had been estimated as 5.0 x 10(-9) M. The facile and rapid method has been successfully applied to the detection of luteolin in tablets.