INVESTIGATION OF A METHOD OF ANALYSIS AND THE DECOMPOSITION PRODUCTS OF FURAZOLIDONE Contract Report to the Department of the Environment
Report No DWI0320

Feb 1988

SUMMARY

Furazolidone is an antimicrobial drug which is used for therapeutic and prophylatic purposes in cattle, pigs and poultry. It is said to decompose rapidly on exposure to light. It is considered important to be able to quantify residues of the drug and its decomposition products in water because of the possible risks to health.

A method for the determination of furazolidone in animal tissues using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been adopted by MAFF. The work reported here was to ascertain whether that method could be adapted for water analysis and to investigate the photodegradation of the drug.

Furazolidone was separated from water using cartridges containing octadecylsilane (ODS) phases, which were back-extracted with methanol prior to HPLC analysis. The limit of detection under the analytical conditions employed was estimated to be 5 ng. This is equivalent to 1 µg/l for a sample volume of 1 litre.

Although ultraviolet spectrophotometry indicated the eventual total photodecomposition of furazolidone, HPLC analysis of a photodecomposed solution revealed four decomposition products present in only relatively small amounts. Mass spectrometry and infr a-red spectroscopy confirmed that furazolidone remained predominantly unchanged.

The findings are surprising and cannot be explained at present.

Copies of this report may be available as an Acrobat pdf download under the 'Completed Research' heading of the Research Page on the DWI website.