Publications

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 aviscosifier, defoaming and emulsifying agent. However, most of the starch used for thesepurposes 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 affectsthe cost of the final products formulated from this starch. The purpose of this research wasto determine the disintegrant properties of sweet potato and pea starches in paracetamoltablets. Sweet potatoes and peas are grown locally, hence can be used as alternative sourcesof starch to corn starch so that the costs of production for pharmaceutical products thatrequire starch can be reduced. In this study, I extracted starch from peas and sweet potatoesin the laboratory and then used it as a disintegrant to formulate paracetamol tablets usingthe wet granulation method. From the results obtained, starch powders extracted from bothpeas and sweet potatoes passed the tests that make them suitable for use for pharmaceuticalpurposes, and the paracetamol tablets formulated using the two starches as disintegrantshad the desired disintegration time. However, the results indicated that peas starch hadbetter disintegrant properties than sweet potato starch when used as disintegrants in theformulation of paracetamol tablets. All the paracetamol tablets disintegrated before 15minutes as recommended by the Bp specification of disintegration time of less or equal to15 minutes for uncoated tablets. The paracetamol tablets formulated using starch from peasand sweet potatoes disintegrated within 9 minutes and 10 minutes respectively