Application of silver nanoparticles for the spectrophotometric determination of cefdinir and cefepime HCl in pharmaceutical preparations and human urine samples

Abstract

In this work, the application of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) for spectrophotometric determination of cefdinir (CFD) and cefepime HCl (CFP) was developed. The method was based on the ability of the alkaline degradation products of the cited drugs to reduce Ag+ ions to silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) in the presence of gelatin as a capping agent. The linear concentration ranges were 5.0 - 40 and 10 - 100 µg/mL for cefdinir and cefepime HCl, respectively. The lower detection limits were found to be 0.39 and 1.06 µg/mL for CFD and CFP, respectively, while the quantitation limits were found to be 1.18 and 3.21 µg/mL for CFD and CFP, respectively. The formed nanoparticles were characterized by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The proposed method was applied successfully to determination of CFD and CFP in pure drugs, pharmaceutical preparations and human urine samples.