Design and Experimental Analysis of a Cetirizine Hydrochloride Drug Sensor

The chemical name of cetirizine hydrochloride is (±)-2-[2-[4-(4-chlorophenyl) phenylmethyl]-1-piperazinyl] ethoxy acetic acid dihydrochloride (C21H25ClN2O3•2HCl). Cetirizine hydrochloride is an antihistamine with selective antagonism to H1 receptors. Characterized by rapid onset, long duration of action and good safety, it is now a clinical medicine of autonomous production commonly used in China for treating allergic rhinitis, urticarial, allergic skin pruritus and other allergic diseases. According to literature, methods for the determination of cetirizine hydrochloride include high performance liquid chromatography [1], high performance thin layer chromatography [2], liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry [3], UV spectrophotometry [4], capillary electrophoresis [5], capillary electrophoresis electrochemiluminescence [6], potentiometric titration [7], perchloric acid titration [7], linear sweep polarography [8], electrochemiluminescence [9] and fluorescence quenching method [10], etc. These methods are cumbersome and have high requirements for instruments and equipment’s. Though they have shown that the system can be miniaturized by a handheld system [11-13], this is yet to be done. In this paper, a cetirizine hydrochloride PVC membrane drug sensor was developed by using the ion association complex produced with sodium tetraphenylborate and cetirizine hydrochloride as electroactive substance. Using the sensor for the determination of cetirizine hydrochloride in drugs, the relative standard deviation is less than 3%. The sensor has high response speed, simple operation, high sensitivity and high determination accuracy.