Structure elucidation of degradation products of the antibiotic amoxicillin with ion trap MS(n) and accurate mass determination by ESI TOF.

Today, it is necessary to identify relevant compounds appearing in discovery and development of new drug substances in the pharmaceutical industry. For that purpose, the measurement of accurate molecular mass and empirical formula calculation is very important for structure elucidation in addition to other available analytical methods. In this work, the identification and confirmation of degradation products in a finished dosage form of the antibiotic drug amoxicillin obtained under stress conditions will be demonstrated. Structure elucidation is performed utilizing liquid chromatography (LC) ion trap MS/MS and MS3 together with accurate mass measurement of the molecular ions and of the collision induced dissociation (CID) fragments by liquid chromatography electro spray ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC/ESI-TOF).