Direct spectrophotometric determination of sulfathiazole in presence of sulfadiazine and sulfamerazine.

A direct spectrophotometric method for the quantitative determination of sulfathiazole and the total pyrimidyl sulfonamide content in a mixture containing sulfadiazine and sulfamerazine is reported. This three-component system was readily reduced to the problem of a simple two-component system analysis. Based on dual isoabsorptive wavelength spectroscopy, simultaneous equations were developed that required absorbance measurements at only two selected wavelengths both isoabsorptive. The location of the isoabsorptive wavelengths was dependent on the pH of the solvent medium, and 0.1 M HCl gave the best results. The validity of the derived equations was demonstrated in a recovery study involving synthetic mixtures containing varying quantities of the three sulfonamides. The recovery was linear over a wide concentration range, and the precision of the method was about 1%.