Spectrophotometric Assay of Certain Aminoglycosides Using Cyanoacetamide

Abstract

A simple and sensitive ultraviolet spectrophotometric method has been devised for the determination of amikacin, kanamycin, neomycin and streptomycin in pure form and in some pharmaceutical preparations. The method depends on the nitrosation of the primary amino groups followed by reaction with cyanoacetamide in ammonia medium at 100°C for 30 min, The reaction products exhibit a characteristic absorption. maximum at 270 nm. Beer's law is obeyed within the concentration ranges 4–40 μg ml⁻¹ for amikacin, kanamycin and neomycin and 8–80 μg ml⁻¹ for streptomycin with apparent molar absorptivities of about 1.85 × 10⁴ for the first three compounds and 1.3×10⁴ 1. mole⁻¹.cm⁻¹ for streptomycin.

Key Words:

• Amikacin
• kanamycin neomycin
• streptomycin
• spectrophotometric assay
• cyanoacetamide