Development and validation of chemometrics-assisted spectrophotometric and liquid chromatographic methods for the simultaneous determination of two multicomponent mixtures containing bronchodilator drugs

Three methods are developed for the determination of two multicomponent mixtures containing guaiphenesine (GU) with salbutamol sulfate (SL), methylparaben (MP) and propylparaben (PP) [mixture 1]; and acephylline piperazine (AC) with bromhexine hydrochloride (BX), methylparaben (MP) and propylparaben (PP) [mixture 2]. The resolution of the two multicomponent mixtures has been accomplished by using numerical spectrophotometric methods such as partial least squares (PLS-1) and principal component regression (PCR) applied to UV absorption spectra of the two mixtures. In addition HPLC method was developed using a RP 18 column at ambient temperature with mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile–0.05 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate, pH 4.3 (60:40, v/v), with UV detection at 243 nm for mixture 1, and mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile–0.05 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate, pH 3 (50:50, v/v), with UV detection at 245 nm for mixture 2.The methods were validated in terms of accuracy, specificity, precision and linearity in the range of 20–60 μg ml−1 for GU, 1–3 μg ml−1 for SL, 20–80 μg ml−1 for AC, 0.2–1.8 μg ml−1 for PP and 1–5 μg ml−1 for BX and MP. The proposed methods were successfully applied for the determination of the two multicomponent combinations in laboratory prepared mixtures and commercial syrups.