Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Effect of reprocessing and excipient characteristics on ibuprofen tablet properties

John Rojas , Carlos Zuluaga, Andrés Cadavid

Department of Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, The University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia;

For correspondence:- John Rojas Email: jrojasca@gmail.com Tel:574 219 5472

Received: 30 May 2014 Accepted: 13 May 2015 Published: 29 July 2015

Citation: Rojas J, Zuluaga C, Cadavid A. Effect of reprocessing and excipient characteristics on ibuprofen tablet properties. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(7):1145-1152 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i7.4

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To determine excipient and ibuprofen:excipient mixture sensitivity to reprocessing produced by either direct compression or wet granulation.

Methods: The effect of excipient type, technology and reprocessing on flow, compressibility and compactibility was assessed using and 8x2x2 factorial design. Design Expert® v.8.01 software was employed for data analysis. Pure excipients were processed by direct compression, while the ibuprofen:excipient mixtures were processed by wet granulation. Once compacts were produced, they were milled and reprocessed using the same technologies, respectively. Excipient properties such as particle size, porosity and densities were also evaluated.

Results: For most excipients, reprocessing caused a 20 – 50 % decrease in particle size and 5 – 80 % reduction in porosity, but increased compactibility (10 – 50 %). Flow decreased (30 – 50 %) only for highly densified excipients such as calcium carbonate and calcium diphosphate.

Conclusion: Microcrystalline cellulose and sorbitol are the excipients with the best tableting properties when reprocessing is conducted via wet granulation and direct compression platforms, respectively.

Keywords: Reprocessing, Excipient, Microcrystalline cellulose, Sorbitol Direct compression, Wet granulation, Ibuprofen