A rapid, sensitive, and greener stability-indicating normal-phase HPTLC method with univariate calibration for the estimation of chlorhexidine acetate in its commercial formulations

Abstract

Till date, there is no report on high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) analysis of chlorhexidine (CHD) or its salts like CHD acetate (CHD-A), CHD gluconate, and CHD hydrochloride. Therefore, a rapid, sensitive, and greener normal-phase HPTLC method has been reported for the analysis of CHD-A in its four different commercial dosage forms. The quaternary combination of ethyl acetate: ethanol: water: formic acid (75:10:10:5, v v v v−1) was optimized as the green solvent system/mobile phase for CHD-A analysis. The CHD-A detection was carried out at 264 nm. The greener normal-phase HPTLC assay was linear in the range of 10–2000 ng band−1. In addition, the proposed method was accurate, precise, sensitive, and selective for CHD-A analysis. The greener normal-phase HPTLC method was able to detect CHD-A in the presence of its degradation products, suggesting the stability-indicating property of this method. The content of CHD-A in commercial products A, B, C, and D was detected as 0.18, 2.02, 1.46, and 0.19% w w−1, respectively. The greenness scale for the greener normal-phase HPTLC assay was estimated as 0.88 utilizing “analytical GREEnness (AGREE)” calculator, suggested the greener nature of the normal-phase HPTLC assay. Overall, these data suggested that the greener normal-phase HPTLC method can be successfully used for the determination of CHD-A in its commercial products.