Different Chromatographic Methods for Simultaneous Determination of Mefenamic Acid and Two of Its Toxic Impurities

Two sensitive, accurate and precise chromatographic methods mentioned as TLC-densitometric method and RP-HPLC-DAD method, were developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of mefenamic acid (MEF) and its two toxic impurities, benzoic acid (BA) and 2,3-dimethylaniline (DMA). In the proposed TLC-densitometric method a developing system consisting of chloroform:acetone:acetic acid:ammonia solution(70:30:2:2, v/v/v/v) was used, TLC aluminum plates 60 F254 was used as a stationary phase and the separated bands were UV-scanned at 225 nm. While the proposed RP-HPLC-DAD method depended on chromatographic separation on C18 column using 0.05 M KH2PO4 buffer: acetonitrile (40:60, v/v) as a mobile phase at constant flow rate of 1 mL/min with UV detection at 225 nm. Linear relationships were obtained in the ranges of 0.3-2, 0.3-2 and 0.3-1.8 μg/band (for TLC-densitometric method) and in the ranges of 7-50, 10-50 and 7-50 μg/mL (for HPLC-DAD method) for MEF, BA and DMA, respectively. Factors affecting the developed methods have been studied and optimized. Moreover ,the proposed methods were successfully applied for determination of the studied drug in its pharmaceutical dosage form. The methods showed no significance difference when compared with the reported method using F-test and Student's-t test. The low of detection and quantization limits of the proposed methods get them suitable for quality control and stability studies of MEF in pharmaceutical formulation. The developed methods have advantages of being more selective and sensitive than the published methods.