LAUSR

A new selective reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method with an attitude of practical use in pharmaceutical laboratories for simultaneous determination of Ascorbic acid, Acetaminophen, phenylephrine, Caffeine, Pamabrom, Guaifenesin, Dextromethorphan, Pyrilamine, Chlorpheniramine maleate, Ibuprofen in the presence of Methyl, Ethyl, Butyl Parabens as preservatives has been developed and validated. These active pharmaceutical ingredients widely used in a variety of cough and cold medicines. The separation was carried out on an Atlantis dC18 column including 4.6 mm inner diameter, 150 mm length and particle size of 3 μm, using a mobile phase which consisted of an ion-pairing agent (sodium salt of heptane sulphonic acid) as a buffer solution mixed with acetonitrile as an organic modifier at a flow rate of 1 mL min−1 on a gradient system. The investigation was carried out on wavelength program detection to quantify the very low concentration of Dextromethorphan and Chlorpheniramine and high concentration of Acetaminophen, Guaifenesin, Ibuprofen, Ascorbic Acid at the wavelengths of 290 and 215 nm. The temperature was maintained at 40 °C. The method was shown to be linear (R2 > 0.996), accurate (recoveries 97.77–103.94%), precise (RSD ≤ 1.0%), sensitive, specific, simple, fast and robust. The proposed reverse phase-liquid chromatography method was successfully applied to the routine analysis of the Over-The-Counter tablets containing these active pharmaceutical ingredients without any interference with excipients and parabens and 4-aminophenol.