Simultaneous Quantification of Paracetamol and Caffeine in Powder Blends for Tableting by NIR-Chemometry

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a technique widely used for rapid and nondestructive analysis of solid samples. A method for simultaneous analysis of the two components of paracetamol and caffeine from powder blends has been developed by using chemometry with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The method development was performed on samples containing 80, 90, 100, 110, and 120% active pharmaceutical ingredients, and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) spectra of prepared powder blends were recorded and analyzed in order to develop models for the prediction of drug content. Many calibration models were applied in order to perform quantitative determination of drug content in powder, and choosing the appropriate number of factors (principal components) proved to be of highly importance for a PLS chemometric calibration. Once the methods were developed, they were validated in terms of trueness, precision, and accuracy. The results obtained by NIRS methods were compared with those obtained by HPLC reference method, and no significant differences were found. Therefore, the NIR chemometry methods were proved to be a suitable tool for predicting chemical properties of powder blends and for simultaneous determination of active pharmaceutical ingredients.