Abstract
Two multivariate chemometric models, namely, partial least-squares regression (PLSR) and linear support vector regression (SVR), are presented for the analysis of amoxicillin trihydrate and dicloxacillin sodium in the presence of their common impurity (6-aminopenicillanic acid) in raw materials and in pharmaceutical dosage form via handling UV spectral data and making a modest comparison between the two models, highlighting the advantages and limitations of each. For optimum analysis, a three-factor, four-level experimental design was established, resulting in a training set of 16 mixtures containing different ratios of interfering species. To validate the prediction ability of the suggested models, an independent test set consisting of eight mixtures was used. The presented results show the ability of the two proposed models to determine the two drugs simultaneously in the presence of small levels of the common impurity with high accuracy and selectivity. The analysis results of the dosage form were statistically compared to a reported HPLC method, with no significant difference regarding accuracy and precision, indicating the ability of the suggested multivariate calibration models to be reliable and suitable for routine analysis of the drug product. Compared to the PLSR model, the SVR model gives more accurate results with a lower prediction error, as well as high generalization ability; however, the PLSR model is easy to handle and fast to optimize.