Gas chromatographic determination of carboxylic acid chlorides and residual carboxylic acid precursors used in the production of some penicillins.

An improved gas chromatographic method is described for the simultaneous determination of carboxylic acid chlorides and related carboxylic acids used in the production of some commercial semisynthetic penicillins. The acid chloride reacts with diethylamine to form the corresponding diethylamide. Carboxylic acid impurities are converted to trimethylsilyl esters. The two derivatives are separated and quantitated in the same chromatographic run. This method, an extension of the earlier procedure of Hishta and Bomstein (1), has been applied to the acid chlorides used to make oxacillin, cloxacillin, dicloxacillin, and methicillin (Figure 1); it shows promise of application to other acid chlorides. The determination is more selective than the usual titration methods, which do not differentiate among acids with similar pK's. Relative standard deviations of the acid chloride determination are 1.0-2.5%. Residual carboxylic acid can be repetitively determined within a range of 0.6% absolute.