Calcium carbonate has a wide applicability in the pharmaceutical industry as an excipient and also as an active ingredient, and in the food industry as a major dietary supplement.
The U.S. Pharmacopoeia (USP) monographs for calcium and magnesium carbonates tablets as well as calcium carbonate and magnesia chewable tablets currently describe manual titration as the assay procedure for calcium and magnesium. The USP has embarked on a global initiative to modernise many of the existing monographs across all compendia. In response to this initiative, two alternative analytical methods were developed to determine the analytes calcium and magnesium, viz. ion chromatography (IC) procedures using conductivity detection that provided better accuracy and specificity and are suitable for the intended purpose.
These validated IC methods (according to USP General Chapter “1225” offer a significant improvement to the existing assays because they can simultaneously determine both analytes calcium and magnesium, saving both time and effort.
