The influence of pH on the stability of antazoline: kinetic analysis

Degradation of the drug antazoline was studied in aqueous solutions by means of pH-rate profiling (pH 0–7.4). The novel approach of Runge–Kutta numerical integration in combination with multi-parameter optimisation was applied to UV-Vis spectral data to determine a valid kinetic model and kinetic parameters of the degradation process. The overall degradation mechanism was found to be dependent on the environmental pH. In the pH range of 3.0–7.4, the formation of the antazoline hydrolysis product (N-(2-aminoethyl)-2-(N-benzylanilino)acetamide) through three different pathways (acidic, non-catalysed, and semi-alkaline hydrolysis) was observed. In highly acidic media (pH 0–2), the degradation mechanism was found to be more complex. Although the same primary degradation product formed, a colourful (dark blue/violet) intermediate was also observed and further investigated by HPLC/TOF-MS.