High-performance liquid chromatography of timolol and potential degradates on dynamically modified silica

A novel method for the determination of timolol in pharmaceutical products has been developed and is described. The method employs high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on silica dynamically modified with the cetyltrimethylammonium cation to quantitate the analyte. The use of this type of reversed-phase HPLC system for timolol determinations results in improved quality of chromatography, especially in terms of peak tailing and peak efficiency, in comparison to chromatography on bonded-phase silica. Column-to-column as well as manufacturer-to-manufacturer reproducibility for this separation on silica columns has been obtained and is better in our hands than that encountered with bonded-phase column packings. The method has been shown to be linear for the compounds studied, comparably accurate and precise to bonded-phase methods and specific for timolol in a variety of pharmaceutical formulations. Under the conditions specified, timolol can be successfully separated from its three known potential degradates. Possible explanations of the primary retention mechanisms for the analytes are offered.