Evaluation of the Potential of Mesocarp Babassu Powder as a Technological Excipient to Pharmaceutical Industry - Part I

Abstract

The excipients were considered mere substances capable of facilitating and protecting the drug administration. Currently, are essential constituents, which guarantee the performance of the product and optimize the therapeutic effect. In search of a new material, the present work, wthrough a rheological study, thermal (TG / DTG) and X-ray diffraction (DRX) studies, evaluated the use of babassu mesocarp powder (MB) as technological excipient. The results of the rheological characteristics of MB as well as their granules against the microcrystalline cellulose and starch were satisfactory for use as an excipient. The thermal characteristics revealed similarity between MB, starch and cellulose, however, the greatest similarity was with the starch. The DRX data revealed that the MB has an amorphous structure similar to the structure of starch, corroborated the data obtained by TG / DTA. Therefore we conclude that the MB has favourable properties for use as an excipient in the pharmaceutical industry.