Simultaneous Determination of Ascorbic Acid, Pseudoephedrine Hydrochloride and Ibuprofen in their Combined Tablets Using Micellar Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

An accurate, simple, sensitive, and selective micellar liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of ascorbic acid, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, and ibuprofen in their combined tablets. Separation was conducted using an ODS C18 (150 × 4.6 mm id) stainless steel column at ambient temperature with UV-detection at 260 nm. A mobile phase composed of 30 mM sodium dodecyl sulphate, 8% 1-propanol, 0.3% tri-ethylamine in 0.02 M phosphoric acid, and adjusted to pH 3 has been used at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. The calibration curves were rectilinear over the concentration ranges of 1.5–18.0, 1.0–10.0, and 3.0–30.0 µg/mL for ascorbic acid, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, and ibuprofen, respectively. The detection limits (LOD) of the aforementioned drugs were 1.0, 0.05, and 2.2 µg/mL, and quantification limits (LOQ) were 1.4, 1.2, and 3.2 µg/mL respectively. The results obtained were in good agreement with those obtained by the comparison method. Furthermore, the method was applied for content uniformity testing.

Keywords:

• ascorbic acid
• combined tablets
• content uniformity testing
• ibuprofen
• micellar liquid chromatography
• pseudoephedrine

Notes

*N (Number of theoretical plates) = 5.54 (t_R/w_1/2)², where: t_R is the retention time of the analyte, w_1/2 is the peak width at half height.

*B/A (asymmetry factor) is the distance from the center line of the peak to the back slope divided by the distance from the center line of the peak to the front slope, with all measurements made at 10% of the maximum peak height.

*Figures between parenthesis are tabulated t and F values at P = 0.05.^{[ 42 ]}

*.89 and 4.74 are tabulated t and F values at P = 0.05.^{[ 42 ]}

*1.89 and 4.74 are tabulated t and F values at P = 0.05.^{[ 42 ]}