“…The adjustment of the extract pH between 8.1 and 8.3, before the elution, was important to avoid clogging of C18 cartridge (Boison and Keng, 1998). The use of C18 SPE cartridge for purification of extracts containing beta-lactams has been described by many authors (Terada and Sakabe, 1985;Munns et al, 1985;Boison et al, 1994;Tarbin et al, 1995;Sorensen et al, 1997;Luo et al, 1997;Boison and Keng, 1998;Takeba et al, 1998) and was also appropriate in this method. The 1 mL volume of acetonitrile:water 50:50 v/v was sufficient to extract the beta-lactams completely.…”