Facile separation of sulfonamides from their degradates by liquid--liquid extraction

Regulation of acidity for protonation of the free N4-amine can provide for the selective liquid--liquid extraction isolation of a sulfonamide from its degradation products. This principle is applied for the stability-indicating determination of sulfacetamide in the presence of sulfanilamide, sulfaquinoxaline in feed, and sulfabromomethazine in dosage forms. In solution, sulfabromomethazine can exhibit photodecomposition to sulfamethazine. The mean relative errors of the these methods and the precision, represented by relative standard deviations, are each typically less than 2%.