Simultaneous determination of naphazoline and pyridoxine in eye drops using excitation–emission matrix fluorescence coupled with second-order calibration method based on alternating trilinear decomposition algorithm

A novel method is developed for the direct determination of naphazoline hydrochloride (NAP) and pyridoxine hydrochloride (VB6) in commercial eye drops. By using excitation–emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence coupled with second-order calibration method based on the alternating trilinear decomposition (ATLD) algorithm, the proposed approach can achieve quantitative analysis successfully even in the presence of unknown and uncalibrated interferences. The method shows good linearity for NAP and VB6 with correlation coefficients greater than 0.99. The results were in good agreement with the labeled contents. To further confirm the feasibility and reliability of the proposed method, the same batch samples were analyzed by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) based on LC–MS/MS method. T-test demonstrated that there are no significant differences between the prediction results of the two methods. The satisfactory results obtained in this work indicate that the use of the second-order calibration method coupled with the EEM is a promising tool for industrial quality control and pharmaceutical analysis due to its advantages of high sensitivity, low-cost and simple implementation.

Graphical abstractA novel method is developed for the direct determination of naphazoline hydrochloride (NAP) and pyridoxine hydrochloride (VB6) in commercial eye drops using excitation–emission matrix fluorescence coupled with second-order calibration method based on alternating trilinear decomposition algorithm.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide