Development and validation of a liquid chromatographic method for the determination of ascorbic acid dehydroascorbic acid and acetaminophen in pharmaceuticals

A reversed-phase ion pair liquid chromatographic method (RP-LC) for the determination of dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) and ascorbic acid (AA) and also acetaminophen, which is combined in pharmaceuticals, is proposed and validated. AA and acetaminophen were analyzed directly, while DHA was determined after pre-column derivatization with 4,5-dimethyl-1,2-phenylenediamine (DMPD). The derivatization reaction was carried out under mild conditions (10 min at ambient temperature) in the dark in sodium acetate buffer (80 mM; pH 3.7) solution containing EDTA as metal scavenger. The chromatographic separations were performed on a Phenomenex Synergi 4u hydro-RP (150 mm x 4.6 mm) under isocratic elution conditions, using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as ion-pairing reagent in the mobile phase. Linear responses were observed for each compound. The intra-day precision (R.S.D.) was ≤ 1.40% and there was no significant difference between intra- and inter-day data. Recovery studies showed good results for all compounds (99.7-101.8%) with R.S.D. ranging from 0.56 to 1.82%. The limits of quantitation were about 40, 50 and 140 pmol for acetaminophen, AA and DHA, respectively. The DHA impurity values found in dosage forms were ≤ 0.2% of AA.