High Pressure Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Promethazine Hydrochloride in the Presence of its Thermal and Photolytic Degradation Products: A Stability Indicating Assay

Abstract

A stability indicating method has been developed for the quantitation of promethazine hydrochloride in the presence of its photolytic and thermal degradation products. Following a basic extraction with acetonitrile, promethazine is separated from its internal standard, promazine, and vehicle components by direct high performance liquid chromatography using ultraviolet detection (249 nm) and a stainless steel column 25 cm in length, 0.46 cm i.d. packed with octa-decyl silica 5μ in diameter. A linear relationship was obtained between peak height ratio (promethazine/promazine) and promethazine hydrochloride in water over the range 30–600 g/ml. The percent coefficient of variation of the assay is 0.8% and the recovery of promethazine hydrochloride from aqueous solutions is 99.7%. The photolytic degradation of promethazine hydrochloride does not follow simple first order kinetics. Potassium iodide and p-benzoquinone had a significant effect on the degradation rate of promethazine during the first 30 minutes of the photolytic degradation reaction. However, after one hour there is no apparent quenching effect on the photolytic degradation rate of promethazine hydrochloride in the presence of these quenchers.