Rapid Determination of 5-Nitrofuran Ring Antibiotics in Complex Samples Using a Boron-Doped Diamond Electrode and Differential Pulse Voltammetry

Abstract

A rapid, simple, and precise electrochemical method was developed for the determination of the total content of antibiotics containing a 5-nitrofuran ring with antibacterial activity including furazolidone, nitrofurazone, nitrofurantoin, and furaltadone in several samples. Boron-doped diamond electrode was used as the working electrode. The electrochemical properties of these compounds were evaluated by cyclic voltammetry. A differential pulse voltammetric method based on the cathodic reduction at high potentials was used for the determination of the total nitrofuran content in a mixture at pH 6.47. The voltammetric measurements showed that the proposed electrochemical method was able to identify the nitrofurazone from a mixture of antibiotics based on its anodic oxidation in alkaline medium (pH 10.6). This method presented good accuracy (between 94.5 and 102.5%) and precision (less than 3.94%), with calibration graphs starting from 50 nmol L⁻¹. The method was applied with success for the determination of total content of compounds with 5-nitrofuran ring and for the selective determination of nitrofurazone in pharmaceutical tablets and food products (milk and honey) without pretreatment of the samples.

Keywords:

• Boron-doped diamond electrode
• cyclic voltammetry (CV)
• differential pulse voltammetry (DPV)
• food analysis
• nitrofuran antibiotics
• pharmaceutical analysis

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financed by the Romanian Department of Education and Research (MEN-UEFISCDI) projects: 22PFE/2018 (Program 1-Projects for Excellence Financing) and BIODIVERS 3 (Nucleu).