Chiral separation and determination of enantiomeric purity of the pharmaceutical formulation of cefadroxil using coated and immobilized amylose-derived and cellulose-derived chiral stationary phases

Abstract

Background and objectives In the present article, we describe the development of a simple, direct, and isocratic high-performance liquid-chromatographic method for chiral separation and the determination of the enantiomeric purity of cefadroxil. Cefadroxil has three chiral centers; the existence of eight different stereoisomers is possible. Only one of these isomers is currently under development as an antibiotic agent and, consequently, the other seven isomers are considered as unwanted chiral impurities.Materials and methods An analytical chiral separation was carried out to check its enantiomeric purity. The separation was carried out by exploiting the high efficiency of several coated/immobilized cellulose and amylose chiral stationary phases under normal-phase and polar-organic modes. The effects of type and concentration of the alcoholic modifiers, 2-propanol and ethanol, on the separation of stereoisomers were studied for optimum resolution.Results and conclusion Complete baseline separation of stereoisomers with good resolution was achieved within 40 min under normal-phase mode on Chiralpak IB column using hexane–2-propanol (60 : 40 v/v) as the mobile phase, without any organic additives, at a flow rate of 0.4 ml/min at 25°C and with the ultraviolet detection set at 268 nm. This process was found to be suitable for rapid enantiomeric purity analysis and a quality control of cefadroxil in pharmaceutical formulations without interference of the excipients. The chiral recognition mechanisms of separation were also discussed.