A multihued sustainable appraisal of the electrochemical method for synchronized micro-estimation of the household drug Paracetamol with Aceclofenac or Dicyclomine

TL;DR

The paper introduces an eco-friendly electrochemical method to quickly and accurately measure paracetamol in drug combinations.

Contribution

A sustainable, unmodified electrode-based voltammetric method for simultaneous micro-estimation of paracetamol in two drug mixtures.

Findings

The method achieved linearity with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.9995 for drug mixtures.

The approach aligns with Green and White Analytical Chemistry principles and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The method is rapid, cost-effective, and suitable for routine quality control.

Abstract

Paracetamol (PCT) is an analgesic and antipyretic that is consumed on a large scale and frequently formulated in fixed-dose combinations to enhance therapeutic efficacy. In this study, an Eco-benign differential pulse voltammetric method using an unmodified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was developed for the simultaneous micro-estimation of PCT in two binary mixtures: with Aceclofenac (ACL) and with Dicyclomine (DIC). In the Britton–Robinson buffer (BRB) at pH 2, PCT and ACL exhibited well-resolved anodic peaks at 0.62 and 0.81 V, respectively, while at pH 9, PCT and DIC demonstrated oxidation peaks at 0.41 and 0.58 V, respectively. The validation of the proposed method was conducted in accordance with ICH guidelines and they are applied to pharmaceutical tablet formulations successfully. Linearity was achieved over concentration ranges of 0.2–25 µg·mL⁻¹ for PCT and ACL, and 1–25 µg·mL⁻¹ for PCT and DIC, with coefficients of correlation that exceed 0.9995. The method adheres to Green and White Analytical Chemistry principles by minimizing reagent consumption, analysis time and environmental impact. A multihued sustainability assessment was conducted using several greenness and sustainability metrics and compared with reported techniques. In addition, alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals was evaluated using the innovative Need, Quality and Sustainability (NQS) index. The results demonstrate that the proposed voltammetric approach is simple, rapid, cost-effective and suitable for routine quality control analysis of paracetamol-based binary mixtures.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-41215-w.

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