2,5-Diaziridinyl-3,6-bis(carboethoxyamino)-1,4-benzoquinone I: Kinetics in aqueous solutions by high-performance liquid chromatography.

The application of a rapid, selective, and sensitive reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method to the analysis of 2,5-diaziridinyl-3,6-bis(carboethoxyamino)-1,4-benzoquinone (I) and its degradation products is described. The method was used to study the kinetics of degradation of I over pharmaceutically useful pH ranges. The overall reaction rate followed pseudo-first-order kinetics. The pH-rate profile demonstrated optimal stability between pH 6.0 and 6.5. The degradation behavior suggests the existence of multiple pathways. The temperature dependence of th disappearance of I also was evaluated from the regression equation derived from the Arrhenius plot.