Simultaneous determination of metronidazole and thiamine using UV-spectroscopy

The development of analytical techniques is required for the accurate and comprehensive detection and measurement of antibiotic contamination in the environment. Metronidazole is a common antibacterial, antiprotozoal, and antibiotic drug. Thiamine is a vital biological and medicinal ingredient that is involved in the metabolism of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that produce energy. The study aims to identify the drugs in a mixture without separation to provide more information to confirm if a drug is present in a combination. Metronidazole and thiamine are two examples of pharmaceutical and environmental samples that can be identified using spectrophotometric techniques because of their low cost and simplicity of use. The operating solutions of both drugs were used to scan the UV spectrum between 200 and 400 nm, and the corresponding overlay spectra of the two drugs were recorded. The best absorption peak at 264 nm is exhibited by thiamine, which is observed in the presence of metronidazole with the peak at 320 nm in the suggested method. The working curve for metronidazole and thiamine was set to obey the Beer – Lambert law in the range of (1 – 15) μg/mL for each of them, with molar absorptivity values of 12716.89 and 2053.22 liter/mol/cm for metronidazole and thiamine, respectively. Thiamine and metronidazole showed results in the recovery study that ranged from 99.1 to 100% across three concentrations. For thiamine and metronidazole, the precision study was conducted using estimates of RSD 0.29 and 1.09. The suggested method yielded a relative error of less than 5% when used correctly on pharmaceutical forms. The proposed approach can be used in future research to directly identify the drugs in a mixture without having to separate them.

1. Jamur J. M. S. Analytical techniques in pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers: a review / Izv. Vuzov. Khimiya Khim. Tekhnol. 2024. Vol. 67. Vol. 5. P. 6 – 16. DOI: 10.6060/ivkkt.20246705.7017

2. Jamur J. M. S. Optimization of plasma-assisted desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry for analysis of ibuprofen / Industr. Lab. Mater. Diagn. 2023. Vol. 89. No. 7. P. 21 – 24. DOI: 10.26896/1028-6861-2023-89-7-21-24

3. Jamur J. M. S. A review of analytical methods for the analysis of pharmaceuticals in environmental samples / Izv. Vuzov. Khimiya Khim. Tekhnol. 2025. Vol. 68. No. 4. P. 20 – 24. DOI: 10.6060/ivkkt.20256804.7151

4. Cai W. W., Peng T., Zhang J. N., et al. Degradation of Climbazole by UV/Chlorine Process: Kinetics, Transformation Pathway and Toxicity Evaluation / Chemosphere. 2019. Vol. 219. P. 243 – 249. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2018.12.023

5. Lu J., Wu J., Zhang C., et al. Occurrence, Distribution, and Ecological-Health Risks of Selected Antibiotics in Coastal Waters along the Coastline of China / Sci. Total Environ. 2018. Vol. 644. P. 1469 – 1476. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.096

6. Lu J., Wu J., Zhang C., Zhang Y. Possible Effect of Submarine Groundwater Discharge on the Pollution of Coastal Water: Occurrence, Source, and Risks of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in Coastal Groundwater and Adjacent Seawater Influenced by Reclaimed Water Irrigation / Chemosphere. 2020. Vol. 250. 126323. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.126323

7. Qiao M., Ying G. G., Singer A. C., Zhu Y. G. Review of Antibiotic Resistance in China and Its Environment / Environ. Int. 2018. Vol. 110. P. 160 – 172. DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2017.10.016

8. Yang B., Kookana R. S., Williams M., et al. Oxidation of Ciprofloxacin and Enrofloxacin by Ferrate(VI): Products Identification, and Toxicity Evaluation / J. Hazard. Mater. 2016. Vol. 320. P. 296 – 303. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2016.08.040

9. Zhang W., Cui H., Wong L. J. C. Comprehensive One-Step Molecular Analyses of Mitochondrial Genome by Massively Parallel Sequencing / Clin. Chem. 2012. Vol. 58. No. 9. P. 1322 – 1331. DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2011.181438

10. Ajibola A. S., Zwiener C. Occurrence and Risk Assessment of Antibiotic Residues in Sewage Sludge of Two Nigerian Hospital Wastewater Treatment Plants / Water. Air. Soil Pollut. 2022. Vol. 233. 405. DOI: 10.1007/s11270-022-05875-4

11. Jasim A. A., Jasim W. A., Jamur J. M. S. HPLC method for the determination of some antibiotic residues in different hospitals wastewater in Baghdad City, Iraq / Izv. Vuzov. Khimiya Khim. Tekhnol. 2024. Vol. 67. No. 6. P. 21 – 28. DOI: 10.6060/ivkkt.20246706.7035

12. Seifrtová M., Nováková L., Lino C., et al. An Overview of Analytical Methodologies for the Determination of Antibiotics in Environmental Waters / Anal. Chim. Acta. 2009. Vol. 649. No. 2. P. 158 – 179. DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2009.07.031

13. Faraj R. A. S., Noor H. K., Jamel S. H., Jamur J. M. S. LC-MS/MS method for the determination of imatinib mesylate in blood plasma samples after adsorption by copper tannic acid / Izv. Vuzov. Khimiya Khim. Tekhnol. 2025. Vol. 68. No. 3. P. 27 – 35. DOI: 10.6060/ivkkt.20256803.7121

14. Sadiq K. A., Mohammed S. J., Ghati S. K., Jasim M. S. Adsorption of bromothymol blue dye onto bauxite clay / Baghdad Sci. J. 2024. Vol. 21. No. 8. P. 2625 – 2634. DOI: 10.2123/bsj.2024.8783

15. Sallal T. D., Abass S. M. Oxidative coupling reaction for micro trace analysis of mebendazol residual with p-bromoaniline in presence of n-bromosuccinimide / Baghdad Sci. J. 2020. Vol. 17. No. 3. P. 780 – 786. DOI: 10.21123/bsj.2020.17.3.0780

16. Noor H. K., Abass S. M. Development of a visible spectrophotometric analysis for hydrochlorothiazide in pure and pharmaceutical dosage forms / Int. J. Drug Deliv. Technol. 2021. Vol 11. No. 2. P. 496 – 500. DOI: 10.25258/ijddt.11.2.46

17. Jamur J. M. S. A subject review on application of analytical chemistry in the mitochondrial medicine / Int. J. Pharm. Sci. Nanotechnol. 2024. Vol. 17. No. 3. P. 7406 – 7414. DOI: 10.37285/ijpsn.2024.17.3.10

18. Thulasamma P., Venkateswarlu P. Spectrophotometric method for the determination of metronidazole in pharmaceutical pure and dosage forms / Rasayan J. Chem. 2009. Vol. 2. No. 4. P. 865 – 868.

19. Sarna J. R., Furtado S., Brownell A. K. W. Neurologic complications of metronidazole / Can. J. Neurol. Sci. 2013. Vol. 40. No. 6. P. 768 – 776. DOI: 10.1017/s0317167100015870

20. Book Review / Estuar. Coast. Shelf Sci. 1997. Vol. 45. No. 5. 703. DOI: 10.1006/ecss.1997.0290

21. Tan J., Li R., Jiang Z. T. Determination of thiamine (vitamin B1) in pharmaceutical tablets and human urine by titania-based ligand-exchange hydrophilic interaction chromatography / Anal. Meth. 2011. Vol. 3. No. 7. P. 1568 – 1573. DOI: 10.1039/c1ay05156c

22. Osten D. W., Kowalski B. R. Background detection and correction in multicomponent analysis / Anal. Chem. 1985. Vol. 57. No. 4. P. 908 – 917. DOI: 10.1021/ac00281a030

23. Collado M. S., Robles J. C., De Zan M., et al. Determination of dexamethasone and two excipients (creatinine and propylparaben) in injections by using UV-spectroscopy and multivariate calibrations / Int. J. Pharm. 2001. Vol. 229. Nos. 1 – 2. P. 205 – 211. DOI: 10.1016/s0378-5173(01)00866-3

24. Garcia Rodriguez A. M., Garcia De Torres A., Cano Pavon J. M., Bosch Ojeda C. Simultaneous determination of iron, cobalt, nickel and copper by UV-visible spectrophotometry with multivariate calibration / Talanta. 1998. Vol. 47. No. 2. P. 463 – 470. DOI: 10.1016/s0039-9140(98)00157-x

25. Ho C. N., Christian G. D., Davidson E. R. Simultaneous multicomponent rank annihilation and applications to multicomponent fluorescent data acquired by the video fluorometer / Anal. Chem. 1981. Vol. 53. No. 1. P. 92 – 98. DOI: 10.1021/ac00224a024

26. Lorber A. Quantifying chemical composition from two-dimensional data arrays / Anal. Chim. Acta. 1984. Vol. 164. P. 293 – 297. DOI: 10.1016/s0003-2670(00)85643-3

27. Dinç E. Linear regression analysis and its application to the multivariate spectral calibrations for the multiresolution of a ternary mixture of caffeine, paracetamol and metamizol in tablets / J. Pharm. Biomed. Anal. 2003. Vol. 33. No. 4. P. 605 – 615. DOI: 10.1016/s0731-7085(03)00260-7

28. Souri E., Rahimi A., Shabani Ravari N., Barazandeh Tehrani M. Development of a rapid derivative spectrophotometric method for simultaneous determination of acetaminophen, diphenhydramine and pseudoephedrine in tablets / Iran. J. Pharm. Res. 2015. Vol. 14. No. 2. P. 435 – 442.

29. De Leeuw J. Principal component analysis of binary data by iterated singular value decomposition / Comput. Stat. Data Anal. 2006. Vol. 50. No. 1. P. 21 – 39. DOI: 10.1016/j.csda.2004.07.010