X-ray diffraction study of homoeopathic preparation of ferrum phosphoricum

Background: X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) is a powerful non-destructive technique for characterizing crystalline materials in chemical or pharmaceutical products. It provides information on structures, phases, preferred crystal orientation and other material parameters such as crystallinity, strain and crystal defects. Homoeopathic medicines lack proper standardization and hence pose a greater quality control peril. Very high dilutions of homoeopathic medicines are ultramolecular in nature and remains out of scope for even state-of-art techniques of modern-day pharmaceutical and analytical tools. In the present study therefore lower triturations of homoeopathic preparations of ferrum phosphoricum (iron phosphate) were considered namely 3X, 6X and 12X. Methodology: Homoeopathic trituration of Ferrum Phosphoricum 3X, 6X and 12X which were procured from WSI Pvt. Ltd., Noida, UP, India, The Samples were analysed by XRD [Bruker Powder XRD (D8 Advance)] with Bruker Lynx Eye at UGC-DAE CSR, DAVV, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India and thermal analysis by TGA, DTA (TA SDT60) and DSC (Shimadzu DSC60) at SPPU, Pune, Maharashtra, India. Data analysis was performed by Origine software (8.5), and MS Excel 2016. Results: The PXRD confirmed the presence of crystals of lactose and FePO4∙2H2O in each sample of FP 3X, 6X, and 12X. The thermal analysis by TGA, DTA and DSC techniques showed the presence, purity and stability of FP in 3X, 6X and 12X individually. Conclusion: This study concluded that XRD, TGA, and DSC are promising techniques for standardization of FP 3X, 6X, and 12X triturations and can be used for the analysis of other biochemic salts as well.