Determination of cephalosporins in solid binary mixtures by polarized IR- and Raman spectroscopy

Quantitative IR- and Raman spectroscopic determinations of four cephalosporin antibiotics in six solid binary mixtures have been conducted. This is a new approach for spectroscopic determination of these antibiotics, since the corresponding quantitative analysis in solution only has been reported so far. The correlation coefficient r2 was found to be in the confidence intervals within 99.32–99.88% and 99.90–95.54% for the systems under study by using the absorption ratios of the characteristic bands at 800 cm−1 and 721 cm−1 present in the IR- and Raman spectra of the antibiotic compounds cephalexin, cephalotin, cephaloglycin and cephamandole, respectively. Solid-state linear dichroic infrared (IR-LD) spectral analysis of the solid mixtures was carried out in order to obtain experimental IR-spectroscopic assignment of the compounds studied. Independent high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS/MS) analysis was performed for the validation of the vibrational spectroscopic data. The application of this instrumental analytical tool for the analysis of 10 tablets of the commercial products Cefamandole and Cefalotin (Actavis) was also studied.