Multi-residues analysis of volatile organic solvents in cefotaxime products by capillary gas chromatography

A newly simple and sensitive method was established for the multi-residues analysis of two volatile organic solvents, acetone and isopropanol, in cefotaxime products by capillary gas chromatography with n-propanol as the internal standard material. A PEG-20M flexible fused quartz capillary column (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.33 μm) was used as the analysis column with nitrogen carrier gas and FID detector. A variety of influencing factors for separation and detection of these volatile organic solvents were investigated and optimized. Good linearity were obtained in a range of 0.4-200 μg/mL with the correlation coefficients (r²) of 0.9991 for acetone, 0.9993 for isopropanol. The average recoveries of acetone and isopropanol in three different spiked concentrations were ranged from 92.7-103.2 % with the relative standard deviation less than 3.5 % (n = 5). The proposed method was successfully applied for determination of acetone and isopropanol residues in different cefotaxime products with satisfied result. This method offers a good alternative for routine analysis due to its simplicity and reliability.