UV spectrophotometric flow-injection assay of tetracycline antibiotics retained on Sephadex QAE A-25 in drug formulations

A flow injection analysis system with solid phase spectrophotometric transduction has been developed for the assay of tetracycline (TC), doxycicline (DTC), oxycicline (OTC) and chlortetracycline (CTC). The packing material of the flow-through cell consists of Sephadex QAE A-25 resin on which tetracyclines are temporarily retained. The carrier itself acts as the desorbing solution. The measurements of the intrinsic absorbance of tetracyclines (1000 μl of sample volume) were made at 380 nm (TC, DTC and OTC) and 387 nm (CTC). The detection limits were found to be 0.069 (TC and OTC), 0.081 (DTC) and 0.121 (CTC) μg ml⁻¹ and the linear dynamic range extended between 0.5 and 12 (TC, DTC and OTC) and 1–20 μg ml⁻¹ (CTC). The relative standard deviations (n=10) ranged between 0.7 and 1.2%. A study of the potentially interfering species was carried out. Using the proposed method, tetracyclines were satisfactorily determined without any interference from excipients in pharmaceutical preparations.