An Optical-Fiber Sensor for Colchicine Using Photo-Polymerized N-Vinylcarbazole.

An optical-fiber sensor for colchicine has been fabricated. It is based on the use of the fluorescent dye N-vinylcarbazole, which contains a vinyl unit making it photo-copolymerizable in the presence of a monomer, 1,2-cyclohexanediol diacrylate, on a quartz surface of an optode slide. Prior to the photo-polymerization process the quartz surface was modified with γ-(methacryloxy)propyl trimethoxysilane to introduce vinyl units. A dye-incorporating optode membrane tightly immobilized on the quartz surface was prepared in this way. The spectral characteristics of the optode for sensing colchicines were evaluated, and the response mechanism was discussed. The optode membrane has a relatively long lifetime and short response and recovering time. The linear range of determining colchicine is from 1.0×10-6 to 4.0×10-3 mol L-1. The sensor was applied to determine the colchicine content in pharmaceutical tablets the results of which agreed with those obtained by the pharmacopoeia method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]