The tabletability of the coprocessed samples (F4 and F5) was
compared to the tabletability of physical mixtures (PM3 and PM4)
with the same composition (Fig. 11). The tabletability of
coprocessed sample F4 was slightly but significantly better than
of its physical mixture PM4. In contrast, the tabletability of
coprocessed sample F5 was clearly superior to the tabletability of
physical mixture PM3: the TS of PM3 tablets was 0.9 MPa at a MCP
of 300 MPa, whereas F5 tablets yielded a TS of 2.1 MPa. This
demonstrated the added value of the applied coprocessing method
which is due to the coating of paracetamol crystals with
d-mannitol and PVP.
While the tablet friability of coprocessed sample F4 (30.5%) and
the corresponding physical mixture PM4 (46.8%), which contained
25% b-mannitol and 75% paracetamol, was too high, the friability of
the coprocessed sample F5, formulated with 5% PVP, 20% d-mannitol
and 5% paracetamol was excellent (0.5%) and considerably lower
than of the corresponding physical mixture PM3 (3.0%) which again
illustrated the added value of the coprocessing method.