Extending the applicability of gas chromatography in pharmaceutical analysis

Promovendus/a: Juan Aspromonte

Promotor(en): Prof. dr. Erwin Adams

Pharmaceutical analysis is the application of analytical chemistry in pharmaceutical sciences. It deals with the quality control of medicines and similar products, developing new procedures and techniques to ensure reliable results. One of these techniques is gas chromatography (GC). It is a well-established separation technique based on the selective interaction of the analytes in the gas phase (mobile phase) with the stationary phase. As analytes should be easily volatilised, its use is somehow limited, often requiring long pre-treatments. For this reason, the largest use of GC in pharmaceutical analysis is for the determination of residual solvents. Nevertheless, GC has a great potential for application in routine analysis of pharmaceutical products. In this work, we explored alternatives, tackling different issues by less conventional techniques that can be coupled with GC. So, different headspace sampling modes were explored, including multiple headspace extraction, the total volatilization and the full evaporation technique. Moreover, by an appropriate design of experiments, pre-treatment methods can be simplified and optimised, enlarging the chances of the use of such technique for routine applications in pharmaceutical analysis.