Spectrophotometric determination of cefotaxime by using sodium 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulfonate

A novel method is established to determine cefotaxime by using sodium 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulfonate (NQS) as a chromogenic reagent. A russety product can be formed owing to the nucleophilic substitution reaction between cefotaxime and NQS in 0.1 M solution of NaOH. The maximal absorption wavelength of the product is 489 nm. Absorbance is linear with the concentration of cefotaxime in the range of 3.8–114.6 mg/L, and the regression equation is A = 0.04481 + 0.00567c (mg/L), with a correlation coefficient of 0.9992. The detection limit and the RSD are 3 mg/L and 1.2%, respectively. The average recovery is in the range of 98.9–101.2%. The results indicate that the method could be applied to the determination of cefotaxime in injection.