Simultaneous determination of sulphamethoxazole and trimethoprim in powder mixtures by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared and multivariate calibration

A partial least-squares calibration (PLS) procedure in combination with infrared spectroscopy has been developed for simultaneous determination of sulphamethoxazole (SMZ) and trimethoprim (TMP) in raw material powder mixtures used for manufacturing commercial pharmaceutical products. Multivariate calibration modeling procedures, interval partial least squares (iPLS) and synergy partial least squares (siPLS), were applied to select a spectral range that provided the lowest prediction error in comparison to the full-spectrum model. The experimental matrix was constructed using 49 synthetic samples and 15 commercial samples. The considered concentration ranges were 400-900 mg g−1 SMZ and 80-240 mg g−1 TMP. Spectral data were recorded between 650 and 4000 cm−1 with a 4 cm−1 resolution by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy coupled with attenuated total reflectance (ATR-FTIR) accessory. The proposed procedure was compared with conventional procedure by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using 15 commercial samples containing SMZ and TMP. The results showed that PLS regression model combined to ATR-FTIR is a relatively simple, rapid and accurate procedure that could be applied to the simultaneous determination of SMZ and TMP in routine quality control of powder mixtures. A root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 13.18 mg g−1 for SMZ and 6.03 mg g−1 for TMP was obtained after selection of better intervals by siPLS. Using the proposed procedure it is possible to analyze each sample in less than 3 min considering two replicates (excluding the grinding step). Accuracy was checked by comparison to HPLC method and agreement better than 98.8% was achieved.