Determination of erythromycin ethylsuccinate by liquid chromatography

A method is described for the determination of erythromycin ethylsuccinate by liquid chromatography. A C18 reversed-phase column (25 cm x 4.6 mm I.D.) was used with acetonitrile-0.2 M tetrabutylammonium sulphate (pH 6.5)-0.2 M phosphate buffer (pH 6.5)-water [x:5:5:(90-x)] as mobile phase. The proportion of acetonitrile (x) has to be adapted to the type of stationary phase used. For RSil C18 LL, 42.5% was used. The column was heated at 35 degrees C, the flow-rate was 1.5 ml/min and UV detection was performed at 215 nm. The main component, erythromycin A ethylsuccinate, was separated from all other components which were present in commercial samples. The main impurities were erythromycin A and the ethylsuccinate esters of erythromycin B and C. The amide N-ethylsuccinyl-N-demethylerythromycin A was shown to be present in all the samples examined. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of specialities.