Electrochemistry and determination of cefdinir by voltammetric and computational approaches

The oxidation and reduction behavior of cefdinir (CEF) was studied by experimental methods and computational calculations at B3LYP/6–31+G (d)//AM1. Voltammetric studies were carried out based on two irreversible reduction peaks at approximately −0.5 and −1.2 V on a hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE) and on one irreversible oxidation peak at approximately 1.0 V on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) versus Ag/AgCl, KCl (3.0M) in Britton–Robinson (BR) buffer at pH 4.2 and 5.0, respectively. Differential pulse adsorptive stripping voltammetric methods have been developed and validated for determination of CEF in different samples. The linear range was established as 0.25–40.0 μM for HMDE and 0.40–10.0 μM for GCE. Limit of quantification was calculated to be 0.20 and 0.26 μM for HMDE and GCE, respectively. These methods were successfully applied to assay the drug in tablets and human serum with good recoveries between 92.7% and 107.3% having relative standard deviation less than 10%.