Spectrophotometric Assay of Certain Cephalosporins Based on Formation of Ethylene Blue

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Abstract
The hydrolytic degradation of antibiotics is very often used as a preliminary step in the analytical procedures for their determination. Therefore, a procedure was developed for measuring small amounts of cefadroxil and cefotaxime in pure samples as well as in formulations. The method depends on forming a vis-absorbing compound with N,N-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine sulphate (N,N-DPPD) (ethylene blue dye), after the hydrolysis of cefadroxil and cefotaxime in sodium hydroxide solution to give hydrogen sulphide. The method is selective for cephalosporins, since other β-lactam compounds such as penicillins do not give hydrogen sulphide under alkaline hydrolysis. Variables such as pH, temperature, reagent concentrations and stability of the colour produced have been evaluated to permit selection of the most advantageous technique. Beer's law obeyed over the concentration range 0.5–10 μg/ml and 0.5–7 μg/ml for cefadroxil and cefotaxime, respectively. The detection limit being 0.1 μg/ml and 0.05 μg/ml (defined as the amount of the drug that gave a signal of twice the background noise) for cefadroxil and cefotaxime, respectively. The method has been successfully applied to the analysis of some pharmaceutical formulations. The results have been statistically compared with those obtained by the official method. The relative standard deviation (for 10 replicates) was 1.12 (9 μg/ml) and 0.49% (5 μg/ml) for cefadroxil and cefotaxime, respectively. Procedural details and data for the effect of operating parameters are presented.