Study on the Electrochemical Behavior of the Anticancer Herbal Drug Berberine and Its Analytical Application

Abstract The electrochemical behavior of anticancer herbal drug berberine was investigated in 0.2 mol L ‐1 HAc‐NaAc (pH 4.2) buffer solution at a glassy carbon electrode. The drug yields a single well‐defined reduction peak at the potential of ‐1.085 V at the scan rate of 0.05 V s ‐1 and the electrode reaction is an irreversible adsorption‐controlled process as the result of cyclic voltammetry. All experimental conditions were studied in order to obtain the optimum conditions for the determination of berberine. A good linear relationship was observed between the reductive peak currents and the concentrations of berberine in the range from 1.0 × 10 ‐6 to 8.0 × 10 ‐5 mol L ‐1 . The detection limit of 8.0 × 10 ‐7 mol L ‐1 was obtained in terms of the signal to noise ratio of 3:1 (S/N = 3). The proposed technique was applied to determine the content of berberine in tablets with good satisfactory. In addition, the electrode process dynamics parameters were calculated.