A simple, selective and sensitive spectrophotometric method is described for the determination of mebendazole (MBD) in bulk drug and dosage forms. The method is based on the reaction of MBD with hypochlorite in the presence of sodium bicarbonate to form the chloro derivative of MBD, followed by the destruction of the excess hypochlorite by nitrite ion. The color was formed by the oxidation of iodide with the chloro derivative of MBD to iodine in the presence of starch and forming the blue colored product, which was measured at 570 nm. The optimum conditions that affect the reaction were ascertained and, under these conditions, a linear relationship was obtained in the concentration range of 1.25–25.0·g/ml MBD. The calculated molar absorptivity and Sandell sensitivity values are 9.56·103 l·mol–1·cm–1 and 0.031 μg/cm2, respectively. The limits of detection and quantification are 0.11 and 0.33 μg/ml, respectively. The proposed method was applied successfully to the determination of MBD in bulk drug and dosage forms, and no interference was observed from excipients present in the dosage forms. The reliability of the proposed method was further checked by parallel determination by the reference method and also by recovery studies.
