Stability-indicating simultaneous determination of paracetamol and three of its related substances using a direct GC/MS method.

A simple, direct, and selective stability-indicating GC/MS procedure was developed for the simultaneous determination of paracetamol (PR) and three of its related substances: 4-aminophenol (4-AP), acetanilide (AD), and 4'-chloroacetanilide (4-CA). The method involved resolution of the underivatized compounds using a 100% dimethylpolysiloxane (Rtx-1) column, and MS detection was carried out in the electron-impact mode. The four compounds were completely resolved in less than 11 min. The fragmentation pathways for the four compounds were described, and the structures of the major fragment ions peaks were proposed. Quantification of the analytes was based on measuring their peak areas. The reliability and analytical performance of the proposed method including linearity, range, precision, accuracy, and detection and quantification limits were statistically validated. Calibration curves were linear over the ranges 75-500, 25-350, 25-350, and 25-350 microg/mL for PR, 4-AP, AD, and 4-CA, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of PR and its related substances in laboratory-prepared mixtures of different proportions. Also, it was applied for the assay of PR in several commercially available pharmaceutical formulations with recoveries of 98.95-100.76%.