Determination of panthenol enantiomers in cosmetic preparations using an achiral-chiral-coupled column HPLC system

A new high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for separation and determination of panthenol enantiomers in hair care products was developed. Two types of detectors, low-wavelength ultraviolet (UV) and polarimetric, were used. Optimized conditions consisted of coupled achiral, amino type, and chiral, amylose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate), stationary phases, mixture of n-hexane/ethanol (60:40, v/v) as mobile phase under isocratic conditions and flow rate 0.8 cm³ min^-1 . The effect of column temperature on retention and resolution of enantiomers was studied. The analysis runtime was 10 minutes, and the average retention times for d- and l-panthenol were 7.10 ±0.1 minutes and 8.21 ±0.2 minutes, respectively. The resolution of enantiomers on coupled achiral-chiral columns was R_s = 2.7. The solid-phase extraction method was employed for extraction and purification of analytes. The validated method was selective, accurate, and linear (R² > .998) over the concentration range of 0.001 to 1.0 mg cm^-3 for both enantiomeric forms. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantitation (LOQ) of each enantiomer were 0.3 and 1.0 μg cm^-3 , respectively. The results demonstrated the occurrence of d-panthenol in hair care products.