Green and applicable chromatographic approaches for the estimation of a multi-component cold and flu relief...

The emergence of novel pharmaceutical formulations requires the establishment of a reliable analytical method that can accurately quantify active ingredients for use in diverse quality control applications. An over-the-counter pharmaceutical combination of phenylephrine hydrochloride (PHE), chlorpheniramine maleate (CPM), and ibuprofen (IBU) is formulated to treat allergy, lessen fever, and relieve congestion. Two efficient and applicable liquid chromatographic methodologies were established, with an emphasis on ecological sustainability while preserving analytical precision and accuracy, in addition system suitability parameters were successfully determined for each method. The first approach involved high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) combined with densitometric quantification, employing silica gel HPTLC 60 F₂₅₄ aluminum sheets as the stationary phase. The developing system comprised ethyl acetate-methanol-aqueous ammonium hydroxide (8.0:2.0:0.1, by volume), and scanning was carried out at 265.0 nm. The respective resolutions (R_s) were 8.44 and 4.57 for PHE, IBU, and CPM, respectively. The second one is high-performance liquid chromatographic methodology (HPLC), whereas, efficient separation was achieved on a Kromasil 60-5-CN column using isocratic elution of 10.0 mM ammonium acetate buffer and ethanol (50: 50, v/v), adjusted with acetic acid to pH 2.5 at a flow rate of 1.3 mL/min, with DAD quantification at 265.0 nm, with overall run time about 6 min to achieve sufficient separation among the target analytes. The resolutions (Rs) were determined to be 7.62 and 3.21 for PHE, CPM, and IBU, respectively. The investigated approaches' performance was validated in adherence to the guidelines established by the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines, confirming its reliability for analytical application. Limit of detection (LOD) values were determined to be 0.02, 0.01, and 0.22 µg/band for PHE, CPM, and IBU, respectively in HPTLC method, whilst in HPLC-DAD method, LOD values were 0.03, 0.01, and 0.24 µg/mL for PHE, CPM, and IBU, respectively. These approaches can concurrently estimate the cited drugs in their raw forms, as well as their pharmaceutical combination. In addition, HPLC can monitor their dissolution profiles. Moreover, the applicability profile and ecological sustainability of the studied approaches were verified via employing up-to-date evaluation tools, along with comparisons against official and reported methodologies.