Comparative Evaluation of Sweet Potato and Peas Starches as Disintegrants in the Foundation of Paracetamol Tablets

Abstract

Starch is used as an excipient in pharmaceutical dosage forms such as binder, diluent, disintegrant, absorbent, glidant and sweetener. Starch also has industrial applications as a viscosifier, defoaming and emulsifying agent. However, most of the starch used for these purposes is corn starch and is obtained by importation into Uganda from other countries, which results in a lot of money being utilized in importation of the corn starch which affects the cost of the final products formulated from this starch. The purpose of this research was to determine the disintegrant properties of sweet potato and pea starches in paracetamol tablets. Sweet potatoes and peas are grown locally, hence can be used as alternative sources of starch to corn starch so that the costs of production for pharmaceutical products that require starch can be reduced. In this study, I extracted starch from peas and sweet potatoes in the laboratory and then used it as a disintegrant to formulate paracetamol tablets using the wet granulation method. From the results obtained, starch powders extracted from both peas and sweet potatoes passed the tests that make them suitable for use for pharmaceutical purposes, and the paracetamol tablets formulated using the two starches as disintegrants had the desired disintegration time. However, the results indicated that peas starch had better disintegrant properties than sweet potato starch when used as disintegrants in the formulation of paracetamol tablets. All the paracetamol tablets disintegrated before 15 minutes as recommended by the Bp specification of disintegration time of less or equal to 15 minutes for uncoated tablets. The paracetamol tablets formulated using starch from peas and sweet potatoes disintegrated within 9 minutes and 10 minutes respectively. Keywords: Disintegrant properties, Sweet potato and pea starches, Pharmaceutical products, Paracetamol tablets, Corn starch.