Approach to lattice-related/content-specific spectral ranges of near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy of cefazolin sodium and the construction of a quantitative model for the determination of cefazolin sodium content in different crystal forms

Cefazolin sodium can form both α- and β-form crystals. It also can form dehydrated crystalline and amorphous products through different production processes. Because different polymorphic medicines usually have different physical and chemical properties, it is critical to emphasize the crystallization control of polymorphic medicines. Near-infrared (NIR) analysis, which incorporates a combination of NIR spectroscopic techniques and multivariate chemometric methods, is considered a powerful tool for the determination of the crystallinity of polymorphic drugs. The selection of optimal spectral ranges that correlate with the lattice specificity and content specificity is crucial to obtaining a specific NIR model. In the present work, near-infrared (NIR) spectra of cefazolin sodium with different crystal forms created through different processes were studied. The results suggest that wavelengths within the range of 9102.7–8597.5 cm−1 is related to the specificity of the cefazolin sodium crystal lattice and that the range of 6001.6–5496.4 cm−1 is associated with the quantitative content of cefazolin sodium. The two absorptions are caused by the second overtone of the C-H stretching band (3υC-H) and the first overtone of C-H stretching band (2υC-H), respectively. Using these results, we established a suitable method of constructing a universal quantitative model by using mixed samples in different crystal forms as a calibration set, selecting a content-specific range (6001.6-5496.4 cm−1), and adding lattice-related spectral ranges where appropriate. This may provide a framework for the construction of prediction models for polymorphic medicines.