Greener Stability-Indicating HPLC Approach for the Determination of Curcumin in In-House Developed Nanoemulsion and Curcuma longa L. Extract

Abstract

Despite the fact that several analytical methodologies have been reported for the determination of curcumin (CCM) in a wide range of sample matrices, the greener liquid chromatographic approaches to determine CCM are scarce in the literature. Therefore, this research is designed to develop and validate a greener stability-indicating “high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)” methodology to determine CCM in an in-house developed nanoemulsion, Curcuma longa L. extract, and commercial tablets. CCM was measured on a Nucleodur (150 mm × 4.6 mm) RP C18 column with 5 µm-sized particles. Ethanol and ethyl acetate (83:17 v/v) made up the greener eluent system, which was pumped at a flow speed of 1.0 mL/min. At a wavelength of 425 nm, CCM was detected. The greener HPLC methodology was linear in the 1–100 µg/mL range, with a determination coefficient of 0.9983. The greener HPLC methodology for CCM estimation was also rapid (Rt = 3.57 min), accurate (%recoveries = 98.90–101.85), precise (%CV = 0.90–1.11), and sensitive (LOD = 0.39 µg/mL and LOQ = 1.17 µg/mL). The AGREE approach predicted the AGREE score of 0.81 for the established HPLC technique, indicating an outstanding greenness profile. The utility of the greener HPLC methodology was demonstrated by determining CCM in the in-house developed nanoemulsion, Curcuma longa extract, and commercial tablets. The % amount of CCM in the in-house developed nanoemulsion, Curcuma longa extract, and commercial tablets was found to be 101.24%, 81.15%, and 78.41%, respectively. The greener HPLC methodology was able to detect its degradation product under various stress conditions, suggesting its stability-indication characteristics. These results suggested that CCM in developed nanoemulsion, plant extract samples, and commercial tablets may be routinely determined using the greener HPLC methodology.