Development and Validation of a Novel High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)/Refractive Index Detector (RID) Method to Determine Residual Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) in Microspheres

Abstract

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a commonly used emulsifier for the preparation of DL-lactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) and polylactic acid (PLA) microspheres with sustained-release profile. Although water-soluble PVA is normally considered to have low toxicity, monitoring residual level of PVAs is still necessary, especially for the chronic disease treatment medications containing PVA. In this study, a robust and validated method was developed for the determination of PVA using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and refractive index detector (RID). PVA in sustained-release microspheres containing PLGA, aripiprazole, mannitol, and PVA as active substances was analyzed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) using acetonitrile/water/trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) (300 : 700 : 1; v/v/v) as mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min. The retention time was 11.2 min and PVA was well separated with other components with good linearity (r2 = 0.9997) in the range of 2.5∼75 μg/mL. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.51 μg/mL and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 2.53 μg/mL. The relative standard deviations of intra- and interday precision under different concentrations were not more than 2.1%, and the recoveries were all in the ranges of 95∼105%. The established method has been demonstrated to be accurate, precise, repeatable, specific, and robust and, therefore, suitable for routine analysis of PVA in not only pharmaceutical field but also food and textile industries.