Kinetic spectrophotometric determination of the macrolide antibiotic josamycin in formulations

A simple kinetic spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of josamycin in its dosage forms. The method is based on oxidation of the drug with alkaline potassium permanganate at room temperature for a fixed time of 20 min and measuring the produced green color at 611 nm. The absorbance-concentration plot is rectilinear over the range of 2-10 microg/mL (2.4 x 10(6)-1.2 x 10(-5)M) with minimum detectability of 1.0 microg/mL (1.2 x 10(-6)M). The determination of josamycin by fixed concentration and the rate-constant methods is also feasible with the calibration equations obtained, but the fixed-time method proved to be more applicable. The procedure was applied successfully to commercial tablets, and statistical analysis showed that the results compared favorably with those obtained by reference methods. The effect of sensitizers and surfactants on the performance of the proposed method was also studied. A proposal of the reaction pathway was presented.