Determination of doxycycline in pharmaceuticals based on its degradation by Cu(II)/H2O2 reagent in aqueous solution

The reaction between doxycycline, hydrogen peroxide and Cu(II) was investigated spectrophotometrically in aqueous solutions. The absorption spectra show that the degradation of antibiotic drug occurs in weak alkaline aqueous solutions. The kinetics of the reaction was studied by applying the initial-rate method and the relative rate constants were calculated at different temperatures. The kinetic-spectrophotometric method for the determination of doxycycline based on the kinetics of pseudo-first order reaction at 20°C is proposed. The effects of several molecules and ions usually present in pharmaceutical formulations were studied in order to assess their interference. The calibration graph was applied to the determination of doxycycline in capsule dosage form. The relative standard deviation was no greater than 3.80%. The results were compared to those obtained by the official HPLC method.