Spectophotometric methods for determination of cefdinir in pharmaceutical formulations via derivatization with 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulfonate and 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1, 3-diazole.

Two new simple, sensitive, accurate, and precise spectrophotometric methods have been developed and validated for the determination of cefdinir (CFD) in bulk drug and in its pharmaceutical formulations. The first method was based on the reaction of CFD with 1, 2- napthaquinone-4- sulfonic acid sodium (NQS) in an alkaline medium (pH 11) to form an orange-coloured product that was measured at 490 nm. The second method depends on hydrolysis of CFD using 0.5 M NaOH at 100 °C and subsequent reaction of the formed sulfide ions with 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-Cl) to form a yellow-coloured chromogen measured at 390 nm. Different variables affecting the reactions of CFD with both NQS and NBD-Cl (e.g. NaOH concentration, hydrolysis time, NQS or NBD-Cl concentration and diluting solvent) were studied and optimized. Under optimum conditions, good linear relationships with good correlation coefficients (0.9990-0.9999) were found in the range of 10-80 and 5.0-30 µg ml(-1) for NQS and NBD-Cl, respectively. The limits of assay detection and quantitation ranged from 1.097 and 0.280 and 3.656 and 0.934 µg ml(-1) for NQS and NBD-Cl, respectively. The accuracy and precision of the proposed methods were satisfactory. The proposed method is simple, rapid, precise and convenient and was successfully applied for analysis of CFD in its pharmaceutical formulations and the recovery percentages ranged from 99.25 to 100.20%.