Abstract

In this paper, a simple and rapid method was developed for the simultaneous determination of Piperacillin (PIP) and Tazobactam (TAZ) by second-order derivative spectrophotometry. Water was selected as a solvent for extraction and determination of both analytes. Further studies of photo-stability and forced degradation for both drugs were also performed. The spectral variables were optimized, a smoothing factor of 8•10 3 and a scaling factor of 1•10 4 were selected and the analytical signals were evaluated at 296.3 nm and 233.3 nm for PIP and TAZ, respectively. The detection and quantification limits for PIP and TAZ were: 3.2•10 -7 to 9.5•10 -7 and 2.7•10 -7 to 8.9•10 -7 mol/L, respectively. The levels of repeatability (RSD) were 1.5% and 2.4% for PIP and TAZ respectively. The method was applied to the pharmaceutical formulation TAZONAM NF Wyeth. USA, with a nominal content of 4.0 g of PIP, 0.5 g of TAZ, 0.139 g of citric acid and 1 mg of EDTA. A study of excipients was carried out and it was found that they do not interfere with quantification. By applying this method, a content of 3.96 ± 0.04 g and 0.57 ± 0.01 g was found of PIP and TAZ, respectively. © 2012 Sociedad Chilena de Química.