Analysis of binary mixture of oxytetracycline and bromohexine in their combined veterinary formulation by four simple spectrophotometric methods with greenness assessment

Tetracyclines family is considered as the first-line antibiotic drugs for food animals. Formulating bromhexine (BR) with oxytetracycline (OTC) improved the antibacterial activity of OTC, besides it is considered as a mucolytic agent. Four precise, rapid, and simple spectrophotometric methods were successfully developed for resolution of the overlapped spectra of OTC and BR in their pure form and in their pharmaceutical formulation. The proposed methods are absorption correction (AC), dual wavelength (DW), induced dual wavelength (IDW), and spectrum subtraction (SS) spectrophotometric methods. The developed methods were used for the determination of OTC and BR in the ranges of 2-50 µg/mL and 1-30 µg/mL, respectively for all methods. For (AC) and (SS) methods, OTC and BR were determined at 380 nm and 245.6 nm, respectively after spectral resolution steps. While for (DW) method, the absorbance difference between λ (271.8 -287.6 nm) and λ (245.6 -283.2 nm) were used for the determination of OTC and BR, in order. For IDW, it depended on using the absorbance difference between 271.8 nm and 245.6 nm as well as the equality factor (F) calculated for each drug at the selected wavelengths. In all methods, HCl was used as a solvent and they are validated according to ICH guidelines. Several green metric tools have been developed to evaluate the greenness of the analytical methods like National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI), Modified NEMI, Analytical Eco-scale, Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI) and Analytical GREEnness calculator (AGREE), and all ensured the low impact of the suggested approaches on health and environment. The proposed methods are highly selective, robust and precise. Additionally they are time and money effective and can be used in any analytical laboratory.