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Solubility Advantages And Disadvantages Of Lubricants In Powders

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Lubricants
Lubricants as the name suggest, reduce friction between powder mix and the die walls during compression and ejection. They also prevents the mixed powders/ granules from sticking to the processing zone of the tablet press especially the punches and die. In some cases, lubricants reduce inter-particulate friction and thus, improve flow rates of powders or granules. The best lubricants are those with low shear strength but strong cohesive tendencies perpendicular to the line of shear.
Lubricants can be classified based on their solubility characteristics into
• Soluble lubricants e.g., Polyethylene glycol (PEG), Polyoxyethylene stearates, and Lauryl sulphate salts.
• Insoluble lubricants e.g., Magnesium stearate, glyceryl behenate, …show more content…

They may also increase the aqueous solubility of poorly soluble drug substance in the gastrointestinal tract and, as a result, the rate of dissolution of the active agent will increase. It should be noted that the surfactants should not interact with the drug substance as this may affect the dissolution rate of the drug substance. Example of surfactant include sodium lauryl sulphate (One of the most popular surface-active agent that improves the wetting properties of hydrophobic tablets), Cetylpyridine chloride, glyceryl monooleate etc.
Conclusion
Excipients are essential in the formulation of tablet dosage forms as it ensures successful manufacturing process and quality of the resultant formulation. Proper selection of excipients and their relative concentrations in the formulation is important in development of a successful pharmaceutical formulation. Although excipient are often categorized as inert, preformulation studies can help determine how these excipient influence the stability, bioavailability, and processability of the dosage forms.
The need for acquiring more information and use standards for excipients has been recognized in a joint venture of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. The result is called the Handbook of Pharmaceutical Excipients. This reference work is now distributed widely throughout the world.

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