The identification of cephalosporins antibiotics using IR spectroscopy and chemometric algorithms

Abstract

The use of mid-fi eld infrared spectroscopy in combination with chemometric algorithms for the identifi cation of cephalosporin antibiotics in the form of injectable powders is demonstrated. III generation cephalosporins have been selected as objects of the study: ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, cefotaxime, which are widely used in pharmaceutical practice. IR spectra of the medical preparations have been recorded using an FT-801 Fourier transform IR spectrometer with an attenuated total refl ection (ATR) attachment. The results have been processed in the Microsoft Excel computer package with the XLSTAT add-in using the principal component analysis (PCA), the k-means method and agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AНC). It has been shown that using these algorithms it is possible to identify the studied cephalosporin antibiotics from diff erent manufacturers. In the PCA method, points corresponding to samples are located in separate quadrants depending on the nature of the antibiotic. The k-means method has been used to divide antibiotics into classes; diff erences are also visible in the classes themselves, depending on the manufacturer. The clearest separation of cephalosporins is observed when data are presented using the AHC method in the form of a dendrogram.

Keywords

• cephalosporin antibiotics
• mid-ir spectroscopy
• chemometric analysis
• principal component analysis
• agglomerative hierarchical clustering
• k-means method