An Experimental Design Approach for Validation and Optimisation of Spectrophotometric Determination of Cefixime in Pharmaceutical Dosage Form

Abstract

Two simple, sensitive and precise spectrophotometric methods for the assay of cefixime in either pure form or in its pharmaceutical dosage form are described. The method I is based on the reaction of salicylaldehyde with cefixime resulting in a yellow coloured product, absorbs at λmax 425 nm. The second method describes the reaction between the diazotized drug and N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine dihydrochloride to yield a purple coloured product with λmax at 567 nm. The reaction conditions were optimized to get maximum colour intensity. The absorbance was found to extend linearly with increasing the concentration of cefixime the systems obeyed the Beer's law within the range of 2-10 µg/ml and 5-25 µg/ml for salicylaldehyde and N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine dihydrochloride methods. Common excipients used as additives in pharmaceutical dosage don't interfere within the proposed analytical methods. The products are stable for over 6 h and 10 h respectively. The proposed methods are simple, sensitive, accurate and suitable for quality control uses.