A Novel Two-Step Liquid-Liquid Extraction Procedure Combined with Stationary Phase Immobilized Human Serum Albumin for the Chiral Separation of Cetirizine Enantiomers along with M and P Parabens

The research into the separation of drug enantiomers is closely related to the safety and efficiency of the drugs. The aim of this study was to develop a simple and validated HPLC method to analyze cetirizine enantiomers. In the case of liquid dosage forms, besides the active substance in large amounts there are usually also inactive ingredients such as methyl- and propylparaben. Unfortunately, these compounds can interfere with the analyte, inter alia during chiral separation of the analyte enantiomers. The proposed innovative two-step liquid-liquid extraction procedure allowed for the determination of cetirizine enantiomers (along with M and P parabens) also in liquid dosage forms. The main focus of this study was the chromatographic activity of cetirizine dihydrochloride on the proteinate-based chiral stationary phase. The chromatographic separation of cetirizine enantiomers was performed on an immobilized human serum albumin (HSA) column for the first time. Measurements were performed at a wavelength of 227 nm. Under optimal conditions, baseline separation of two enantiomers was obtained with 1.43 enantioseparation factor (α) and 1.82 resolution (R(s)). Finally, the proposed method was successfully applied to the selected pharmaceutical formulations.