Development of thermogravimetric method for quantitative determination of metronidazole

The objective of this work was to develop and validate a fast and reproducible method to determine the concentration of metronidazole in drug substance and tablets. The samples were analyzed by dynamic thermogravimetry, using 10, 20, 40, 60 and 80°C min–1 heating rates in nitrogen and in nitrogen with synthetic air. Obtained data were used in the Antoine and Langmuir equations in order to have the pressure curves. Vapor pressure curves of drug and tablet of metronidazole were evaluated using the mathematical indexes of difference factor, f1, and similarity factor, f2, to compare their profiles. The data showed that there is no significant difference between the vapor pressure profiles of drug and tablet of metronidazole in both environmental conditions, which confirms that the process is really vaporization. The concentration of metronidazole was determined in the raw material and tablets of the drug.