Sucrose- and formaldehyde-modified native starches as possible pharmaceutical excipients in tableting

Abstract

Abstract Background Starches have been shown to be important across various disciplines such as the pharmaceutical industries, food industries and also paper industries. Starch is basically a mixture of polymers consisting of α-d-glucose as the monomeric unit. The goal of this study is to modify the native starches which were obtained from Zea mays, Triticumestivum and Oriza sativa through cross-linking (using sucrose and formaldehyde at different concentrations) and also to assess the utilizability of the modified starches as potential excipients [binder] for tableting of paracetamol. Results Maize and rice starches cross-linked with 2.5% sucrose gave the least percentage moisture content. The batches cross-linked with 40% formaldehyde showed the highest moisture content. The densities (bulk and tapped) of maize wheat and rice starches showed a reduction with the increasing concentration of the cross-linking agent for sucrose, which is the reverse case for formaldehyde. The different concentrations of sucrose and formaldehyde cross-maize, wheat and rice starches had pH values between 4.50 and 5.52. The onset and end set of the glass transition temperatures were varied for all the starches modified with formaldehyde. The melting peak temperatures obtained indicated that the formaldehyde-modified rice starch had significantly lower melting temperature than those of wheat and maize starches. Conclusions This study reveals that various concentrations of sucrose and formaldehyde had some influence on the properties of the native starches and resulted in the production of new starch motifs with improved or new functionalities suitable for use as drug excipients in tableting.