Determination of cefadroxil by sequential injection with spectrophotometric detector

A sequential injection analysis (SIA) spectrophotometric procedure for cefadroxil determination has been developed. The SIA instrumentation was modified to achieve the desired function and operations by using the software developed to interface the PC with the conventional SIA system. The method is based on the measurement of a red, water-soluble product formed by the reaction between cefadroxil and 4-aminoantipyrine in the presence of alkaline potassium hexacyanoferrate(III) at 510 nm. Optimum conditions for determining the drug were investigated. Beer's law was obeyed over the concentration ranges of 1 - 10 mg L(-1) and 10 - 50 mg L(-1) with a detection limit (3 sigma) of 0.17 mg L(-1) and a limit of quantification (10 sigma) of 0.56 mg L(-1). The relative standard deviations of 1.98% and 1.93% for 5 mg L(-1) and 30 mg L(-1) of the drug, respectively (n = 11) are obtained. The proposed method has been applied satisfactorily to the determination of cefadroxil in commercial pharmaceutical formulations with a sampling rate of 100 h(-1). Results obtained were in good agreement with those obtained by the official HPLC method at the 95% confidence level.