RP-LC and TLC Densitometric Determination of Paracetamol and Pamabrom in Presence of Hazardous Impurity of Paracetamol and Application to Pharmaceuticals

Two simple, accurate and reproducible methods were developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of paracetamol (PARA) and pamabrom (PAMB) in pure form and in tablets. The first method was based on reserved-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, on a Thermo Hypersil ODS column using methanol:0.01 M sodium hexane sulfonate:formic acid (67.5:212.5:1 v/v/v) as the mobile phase. The flow rate was 2 mL/min and the column temperature was adjusted to 35 °C. Quantification was achieved with UV detection at 277 nm over concentration range of 100–600 and 4–24 μg/mL, with mean percentage recoveries were found to be 99.90 ± 0.586 and 99.26 ± 0.901 for PARA and PAMB, respectively. The second method was based on thin-layer chromatography separation of PARA and PAMB followed by densitometric measurement of the spots at 254 nm and 277 nm for PARA and PAMB respectively. Separation was carried out on aluminum sheet of silica gel 60F(254) using dichloromethane:methanol:glacial acetic acid (7.5:1:0.5 v/v/v) as the mobile phase over concentration range of 1–10 and 0.32–3.20 μg per spot, with mean percentage recovery of 100.52 ± 1.332 and 99.71 ± 1.478 for PARA and PAMB, respectively. The methods retained their accuracy in presence of up to 50% of P-aminophenol and could be successfully applied in tablets.