Multivariate calibration techniques applied to the spectrophotometric analysis of one-to-four component systems

The UV spectrophotometric analysis of a multicomponent mixture containing paracetamol, caffeine, tripelenamine and salicylamide by using multivariate calibration methods, such as principal component regression (PCR) and partial least-squares regression (PLS), was described. The calibration set was based on 47 reference samples, consisting of quaternary, ternary, binary and single-component mixtures, with the aim to develop models able to predict the concentrations of unknown samples containing as many as one-to-four components. The calibration models were optimized by an appropriate selection of the number of factors as well as wavelength ranges to be used for building up the data matrix and excluding any information about the interfering excipients included in pharmaceutics. The PCR and PLS models were compared and their predictive performance was inferred by a successful application to the assays of synthetic mixtures and pharmaceutical formulations.