Simultaneous determination of N-acetylcysteine and acetaminophen at the modified electrode assisted by chemometeric approaches

N-acetylcysteine (N-AC) is widely used as a medicine in the treatment of diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, alzheimer s disease and eye infection [1]. Acetaminophen (AC) commonly known as paracetamol which is one of the most commonly used oral analgesics and antipyretics [2]. It has an excellent safety profile when administered in proper therapeutic doses, but hepatotoxicity can occur after its overdose [3]. Untreated overdose of AC can cause liver failure and death within days. In this case, intravenous N-AC is used for the treatment of AC overdose. Due to this fatal effect, simultaneous determination of these compounds (N-AC and AC) is very important. So that, in this work, a sensitive voltammetric sensor based on a carbon paste electrode modified with silica nano particles (BF3@MCM-41) with a combination of 4,4′-Dihydroxybiphenyl (DHB) (BF3@MCM-41/DHB/CPE) was designed for simultaneous determination of N-AC and AC. The modified electrode demonstrated good sensitivity, selectivity, and stability. To simultaneous determination of N-AC and AC in blood serum samples containing unexpected electroactive interference with a very high degree of overlapping, three-dimensional voltammetry data were generated by changing the pulse height as an instrumental parameter. The obtained data subsequently analyzed by parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC). The results show that PARAFAC could be applied with great success for electroanalytical determination of highly overlapped electroactive species in real samples. Finally, the performance of the proposed method for determining both compounds in real samples was confirmed using standard method such as HPLC.