Detection of Amisulpride Using a Chromium-Salophen Optical Probe

Abstract

Patients with psychosis around the world are routinely prescribed anti-psychotic medications. Amisulpride (AMI) is one such medication. In order to detect cases like drug overdose, drug abuse, or intentional poisoning, simple, selective and sensitive probes are required. In the present work, we have synthesized a fluorescent probe (CRSA) for detecting Amisulpride (AMI) and characterized it by FT-IR, NMR and mass spectroscopy. The probe emits green light in ethanol and acts as a “turn-off” luminescent sensor for the anti-psychotic drug Amisulpride (AMI) with a quenching percentage of 94% and an excellent limit of detection of 1.6 μM. The sensor responded effectively to only AMI even in the presence of other drugs like sertraline, fluoxetine, escitalopram, paroxetine, olanzapine and clozapine ensuring good selectivity and specificity of the method. The effect of pH on the sensing abilities CRSA and the applicability of the method to real-life samples were also studied using spiked alcohol samples.