Determination of the active ingredients in simple-recipe ointments by centrifugal partition chromatography

Abstract

The objective of this study was to establish a centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) method for determination of the active ingredients in single-recipe ointments. The mechanism of this method was that the active ingredients were investigated using a UV detector after being extracted from the ointments by CPC, which worked as a fine separating funnel. Three ointments, containing salicylic acid, clotrimazole or aciclovir, were investigated using this method. The calibration curves of all three of the preparations were linear with a R² value higher than 0.998 in the tested concentration range, and the precision RSDs for salicylic acid, clotrimazole and aciclovir were 1.3%, 0.9% and 1.5%, respectively. Compared with the HPLC method, the CPC method had equivalent precision and accuracy, but could directly use the ointment solution as a sample instead of needing a complex sample preparation process. Furthermore, the CPC method also had several advantages in economic cost. In summary, the CPC method is a potential optimized technique to determine ointment formulations.