Simultaneous spectrophotometric determination of mefenamic acid and paracetamol in a pharmaceutical preparation using ratio spectra derivative spectrophotometry and chemometric methods

Four new methods are described for the simultaneous determination of mefenamic acid (MEF) and paracetamol (PAR) in their combination. In the first method, ratio spectra derivative method, analytical signals were measured at the wavelengths corresponding to either maximums or minimums for both drugs in the first derivative spectra of the ratio spectra obtained by dividing the standard spectrum of one of two drugs in 0.1 M NaOH:methanol (1:9). In the chemometric techniques, classical least-squares, inverse least-squares and principal component regression (PCR), the training was randomly prepared by using the different mixture compositions containing two drugs in 0.1 M NaOH:methanol (1:9). The absorbance data was obtained by the measurements at 13 points in the wavelength range 235–355 nm in the absorption spectra. Chemometric calibrations were constructed by the absorbance data and training set for the prediction of the amount of MEF and PAR in samples. In the third chemometric method, PCR, the covariance matrix corresponding to the absorbance data was calculated for the basis vectors and matrix containing the new coordinates. The obtained calibration was used to determine the title drugs in their mixture. Linearity range in all the methods was found to be 2–10 μg/ml of MEF and 4–20 μg/ml of PAR. Mean recoveries were found satisfactory (>99%). The procedures do not require any separation step. These methods were successfully applied to a pharmaceutical formulation, tablet, and the results were compared with each other.