Abstract
The present study describes the application of CE to investigate the interaction between a cephalosporin, cefadroxil and different metal ions. This study aims at quantifying the interaction of cefadroxil with Zn^2+^, Al^3+^, Fe^3+^, Cu^2+^ and Co^2+^ ions using the effective electrophoretic mobility as a parameter for calculation of the reaction association constant (K). For this purpose, the electrophoretic mobilities of cefadroxil at different metal ion concentrations in citrate buffer pH 3.6 were determined. A mathematical model to calculate the association constant between cefadroxil and metal ions was used. The results showed that a strong change in the cefadroxil electrophoretic mobility was observed by increasing the metal ion concentrations. The results revealed that by increasing the concentration of metal ions in the running buffer the degree of complexation increases too. On the basis of the results, the strength of the interaction of cefadroxil with the investigated metal ions follows the order Zn^2+^>Cu^2+^>Co^2+^>Fe^3+^>Al^3+^. The association constant of the investigated reactions ranged from 451.57 to 1546.52โL/mmol. The results indicate that it is possible to characterize the interaction between cefadroxil and metal ions quantitatively using CE.