Disintegration time
Also, results of tablet disintegration time presented in Fig.
1 showed that the disintegration time of paracetamol
tablets ranged from 6.66 ± 0.48 to 12.55 ± 1.47 min for A1
and A5 tablets formulated with 5 and 15 %w/w of starch
co-precipitate, while the reference tablets containing Acdi-sol
(batch B) had disintegration time of 6.69 ± 1.01
min. Therefore all the paracetamol tablets formulated
complied with BP specifications for the disintegration
time of normal release tablets of ≤ 15 min. The
disintegration time of the tablet formulations was
significantly affected by the concentration of the starch
co-precipitate used during formulation (p < 0.05).
Disintegration time of tablets increased as the
concentration of the disintegrant increased as shown in
Fig. 1. However, tablets disintegration time may be a
function of type and concentration of binder, type and
concentration of disintegrants and lubricant, physical
properties of granule such as hardness of the granules
and deformation under load which may be affected by
the type and quantity of binder and lubricant and
compression pressure 16
.
In vitro release
The in vitro release profile of paracetamol tablets are
shown in Fig 2. From the results, all the tablets batches
showed good release properties. The time for maximum
release (T100 %) of drug from A1 tablets was at 15 min. Batches A2, A3, and A4 had T100 % at 20 min, while batch
A5 had T100 % at 25 min. However, the reference tablets
containing Ac-di-sol exhibited T100 % at 30 min. The results
of the in vitro release properties of paracetamol tablets
showed that all the tablets exhibited good release
properties as normal release tablets and the release
properties of paracetamol tablets formulated with starch
co-precipitate as the disintegrants were comparable to
the release properties of the reference tablets containing
Ac-di-sol.
CONCLUSION
Paracetamol tablets containing Zea mays and Oryza
sativum starch co-precipitate were formulated and the
results obtained from the study of tablets properties
showed that the tablets had good properties as normal
release tablets. Also the properties of the tablets were
comparable to the properties exhibited by standard
reference tablets formulated with Ac-di-sol as
disintegrants. Therefore formulation of co-precipitates of
starch is highly recommended as they yield an entirely
new polymer with improved properties over the
individual polymers.