Melita Regelja

Development of an Ion Chromatographic Method for Determination of Inorganic Cations in Seawater Used in the OTC Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract The aim of this work is development of methodology for analysis of inorganic cations (sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium) in seawater used for OTC nasal spray production. It is shown that determined ion chromatographic parameters: type of analytical column, eluent flow rate, concentration of eluent competing ions, and volume of sample loop enables baseline separation of all components of interest. By performing validation procedures and a number of statistical tests, it is shown that a developed ion chromatographic method has superior performance characteristic: linearity R 2 ≥ 0.9990, recovery  = 99.88–100.63%, repeatability RSD ≤ 1.78%. That result proves that the proposed method can be used for routine quality assurance analysis in the OTC pharmaceutical industry.