Ionization constants of cephalosporin zwitterionic compounds.

The microionization constants for two zwitterionic compounds were determined by incorporating two experimental techniques. These compounds have chromophoric changes dependent upon the solution pH. By combining the spectrophotometric measurements with potentiometric mmeasurements, all four microionization constants were calculated. The method used is completely general and is applicable to all diprotic compounds that exhibit this spectrophotometric behavior. The observed pKa's had differences of at most 1.2 units for either compound and were in the 1-4 range. A comparison of the results with each compound and similar compounds indicates that the values are resonable.