Greenness profile and whiteness assessment of the stability-indicating HPLC method for the assay of levetiracetam

Abstract

Adoption of green analytical techniques has been one of the primary goals of the analytical chemistry community over the past years. The reduction of waste generated during sample preparation or analysis is the primary objective of green analytical chemistry (GAC). For the purpose of determining levetiracetam (LEV) in the presence of its alkali-induced degradation product, an accurate, selective, and green stability-indicating reversed phase HPLC technique with UV detection has been devised and validated in the current work. The mobile phase consists of phosphate buffer (pH 3.1) and acetonitrile (87:13 v/v) at the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min, and UV detection was carried out at 210 nm. The stationary phase was Lichrosorb RP-18 (250×4.6 mm i.d., 5 μm particle size) column at 25 °C, in an isocratic mode. The method provided satisfactory resolution and sensitivity, with retention times of (5.6±0.01) minutes for the intact drug and (6.9±0.01) minutes for the alkali-induced degradation product. Different greenness assessment tools, such as the green analytical procedure index (GAPI), Analytical greenness metric (AGREE), and Analytical Eco-Scale (AES), confirmed the proposed approaches' eco-friendliness. The recently launched White Analytical Chemistry (WAC) was also designed to assess the whiteness qualities. The method can be applied for the assay of the cited antiepileptic agent in its formulation in quality control laboratories.