Development and validation of sensitive kinetic spectrophotometric method for the determination of moxifloxacin antibiotic in pure and commercial tablets

•A novel kinetic method for analysis of moxifloxacin based on the reaction with MBTH was developed.•We found that acidic medium is necessary to success the spectrophotometric method.•The method validation demonstrated good recoveries and low detection limit.•The method was successfully applied for analysis of real pharmaceutical samples.

New, accurate, sensitive and reliable kinetic spectrophotometric method for the assay of moxifloxacin hydrochloride (MOXF) in pure form and pharmaceutical formulations has been developed. The method involves the oxidative coupling reaction of MOXF with 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolinone hydrazone hydrochloride monohydrate (MBTH) in the presence of Ce(IV) in an acidic medium to form colored product with lambda max at 623 and 660 nm. The reaction is followed spectrophotometrically by measuring the increase in absorbance at 623 nm as a function of time. The initial rate and fixed time methods were adopted for constructing the calibration curves. The linearity range was found to be 1.89–40.0 μg mL−1 for initial rate and fixed time methods. The limit of detection for initial rate and fixed time methods is 0.644 and 0.043 μg mL−1, respectively. Molar absorptivity for the method was found to be 0.89 × 104 L mol−1 cm−1. Statistical treatment of the experimental results indicates that the methods are precise and accurate. The proposed method has been applied successfully for the estimation of moxifloxacin hydrochloride in tablet dosage form with no interference from the excipients. The results are compared with the official method.

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