An eco-friendly smartphone based HPTLC method versus conventional densitometric one for determination of Naltrexone and Bupropion

The rapid uprising technologies of smartphone applications and software introduced a new era for analytical detection techniques. It has transformed bench-top laboratory methods into simpler ones depending on cost-effective, portable, and widely accessible devices. In this work, two high performance thin layer chromatographic (HPTLC) methods were developed based on smartphone’s camera detection and either ImageJ desktop software or Color-Picker smartphone’s application as alternative techniques to conventional densitometric detection. A mixture of Naltrexone hydrochloride (NAL) and Bupropion hydrochloride (BUP) was chromatographed on HPTLC- plates using ethyl acetate, methanol, acetone, and glacial acetic acid (3:6:1:0.5, by volume) as a developing system. The developed plates were scanned at 203 nm for the densitometric analysis, then visualized by modified Dragendorff’s reagent and shot by a smartphone’s camera. The captured images were uploaded to either ImageJ software or Color-Picker application to detect the separated spots. The results derived from the three detection methods were compared over the concentration range of 0.4–24 & 0.6–18 µg/band for the densitometric method, 0.4–24 & 2–24 µg/band for ImageJ built method and 0.8–20 & 5–20 µg/band for Color Picker built method for NAL and BUP, respectively. The methods were found to be appropriate for assaying both active drug substances in pure forms and combined in marketed pharmaceutical formulations. The excellent sustainability of densitometric and ImageJ-based methods enabled also the assessment of their dosage form content uniformity. The greenness and sustainability of the methods were assessed by three metric tools, namely Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI), Analytical GREEnness Metric Approach (AGREE), and White Analytical Chemistry (WAC). The assessments results confirmed the sustainability and superiority of the proposed methods in terms of sample treatment, waste mount, energy consumption, cost, and number of analyzed samples per an hour.