The simultaneous determination of active ingredients in cough-cold mixtures by isocratic reversed-phase ion-pair...

A simple, rapid and accurate method for the simultaneous determination of active ingredients in cough-cold mixtures using isocratic reversed-phase ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography has been developed. It involves the use of an octadecylsilane column as the stationary phase with methanol, water, tetrahydrofuran, phosphoric acid mixtures as mobile phase including sodium dioctylsulphosuccinate as the ion-pair agent. The pH of the mobile phase was adjusted to 4.6 by means of phosphoric acid and ammonium hydroxide solutions. The proposed method involves the simple dilution of the samples with the mobile phase and the addition of metoclopramide hydrochloride as the internal standard. The active ingredients under investigation were chlorpheniramine, codeine, diphenhydramine, ephedrine, ethylmorphine, phenylephrine, phenylpropanolamine and pholcodine, which exist as various combinations in cough-cold mixtures. The optimum composition of the mobile phase and the optimum flow rate were determined and are reported. The method was applied to the determination of active ingredients in seven commercially available cough-cold mixtures.