Quantitative determination of cephalexin in cephradine by NMR spectroscopy

An NMR method to determine quantitatively the presence of cephalexin in cephradine was developed. The method is applicable to the chemical itself as well as to capsules and oral suspension formulations. The determination is based on the NMR signal arising from the five aromatic protons of the cephalexin molecule. Integration of this signal relative to a signal from cephradine provides the data necessary to determine the percentage of cephalexin present. The precision at the 2% cephalexin levels is +/- 0.18%. The time required to carry out a single analysis is about 10 min, and five analyses can be done in about 0.5 hr.