A green capillary zone electrophoresis method for the simultaneous determination of piperacillin, tazobactam and cefepime in pharmaceutical formulations and human plasma

Abstract

A green, novel, rapid, accurate and reliable capillary zone electrophoresis method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of piperacillin, tazobactam and cefepime in pharmaceutical preparations. Separation was carried out using fused silica capillary (50μm i.d.×48.6cm and 40.2cm detection length) and applied potential of 20kV (positive polarity) and a running buffer containing 15m m sodium borate buffer adjusted to pH9.3 with UV detection at 215nm. Amoxicillin was used as an internal standard. The method was suitably validated according to International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. The method showed good linearity in the ranges of 10-100, 20-400 and 10-400μg/mL with limits of quantitation of 1.87, 3.17 and 6.97μg/mL and limits of detection of 0.56, 0.95 and 2.09μg/mL for tazobactam, piperacillin and cefepime, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the analysis of these drugs in their synthetic mixtures and co-formulated injection vials. The method was extended to the in vitro determination of the two drugs in spiked human plasma. It is considered a 'green' method as it consumes no organic solvents.