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ABSTRACT
This paper presents a new application of three-way parallel factor analysis (3W-PARAFAC) model to the coeluting spectrochromatograms for the quantitative resolution of a quaternary mixture system consisting of paracetamol, propyphenazone, and caffeine with aspirin as an internal standard. Spectrochromatograms of calibration standards, validation sets, and unknown samples were recorded as a function of retention time and wavelength in the range of 0.0–2.5 min and 200–400 nm, respectively, using ultra-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (UPLC-PDA). Three-way UPLC-PDA data array X (retention time × wavelength × sample) was obtained from the data matrices of the spectrochromatograms. 3W-PARAFAC decomposition of three-way UPLC-PDA data array provided three loading matrices corresponding to chromatographic mode, spectral mode, and relative concentration mode. Quantitative estimation of paracetamol, propyphenazone, and caffeine in analyzed samples was accomplished using the relative concentration mode obtained by the deconvolution of the UPLC-PDA data set. The validity and ability of 3W-PARAFAC model were checked by analyzing independent test samples. It was observed from analyses that 3W-PARAFAC method has potential to uniquely resolve strongly overlapping peaks of analyzed compounds in a spectrochromatogram, which was obtained under experimental conditions consisting of the lower flow rate, short run time, and simple mobile phase composition. The proposed three-way chemometric approach was successfully applied to the simultaneous quantification of paracetamol, propyphenazone, and caffeine in tablets. Experiments showed that the determination results were in good agreement with label amount in commercial pharmaceutical preparation.