ABSTRACT
The present study aimed to develop a simple, robust, sensitive and effective stability-indicating reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for simultaneous quantification of diacerein (DCN) and aceclofenac (ACE) in novel nanoemulgel formulation and commercial tablets in the presence of their main degradation product: rhein (RH) and diclofenac sodium (DLS), respectively. A fractional factorial design was used to screen the crucial independent factors, whereas a central composite design was used for the optimization of the chromatographic conditions. The separation was carried out on Phenomenex C18 column (5 µm, 250 × 4.6 mm), using a mobile phase consisting of phosphate buffer pH 3 (0.1% v/v orthophosphoric acid) and acetonitrile (40:60 v/v) at a flow rate of 1 mL/min with detection at 264 nm. The analytes were exposed to a variety of stress conditions, including heat, alkali, acid, oxidation, photochemical, humidity and hydrolysis. DCN, ACE, RH and DLS were found to have retention times of 4.32 ± 0.15, 5.77 ± 0.07, 8.28 ± 0.20 and 9.10 ± 0.18 min, respectively. The percent recovery for all four analytes was found to be between 98 and 102, and the procedure was discovered to be linear in the range of 0.1-64 µg/mL with R2 value > 0.999. The established method was validated as per ICH guidelines and successfully used to assay DCN and ACE in their combined marketed tablet dosage form and developed nanoemulgel formulation.
