An Improved Spectrophotometric Method for Determination of Penicillins Alone and in Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms

Abstract
A new spectrophotometric method for determining penicillins has been developed. A known volume of the penicillin solution is heated at 95[ddot]C for 70 min with ammonium molybdate, in sulphuric acid medium and the absorbance of the blue species formed is measured at 670 nm. The method has been successfully applied for the determination of thirteen commercially available penicillins. Beer's law is valid for up to 35-90 μg/ml of antibiotic (according to the penicillin). The procedure has been used for analysing some pharmaceutical preparations for these drugs, e.g., injections and capsules. The sensitivity of the method is largely increased with respect to the vanadate method previously described.