Green and sensitive spectrofluorimetric determination of two pharmaceutically important cephalosporin drugs in their dosage forms

Using two green and sensitive spectrofluorimetric methods, we quantified two cephalosporins, cefepime (CFM) and cefazolin (CFZ), as raw and pharmaceutical formulations. The first method is based on the reaction between CFM and fluorescamine (borate buffer, pH 8), which yields a highly fluorescent product. After excitation at 384 nm, the fluorescent product emits light at 484 nm. At concentrations from 12 to 120 ng/mL, the relative fluorescence intensity/concentration curve was linear with a limit of quantification (LOQ) of 2.46 ng/mL. The second method relied on measuring the CFZ quenching action on acriflavine fluorescence through formation of an ion-associate complex using a Britton–Robinson buffer at pH 8. We measured acriflavine fluorescence at 505 nm after excitation at 265 nm. The fluorescence intensity decrease was CFZ-concentration dependent. Using this method, we quantified CFZ concentrations ranging from 1to 10 µg/mL with an LOQ of 0.48 µg/mL. We studied and optimized the fact...