Abstract

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 a
viscosifier, defoaming and emulsifying agent. However, most of the starch used for these
purposes 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 affects
the cost of the final products formulated from this starch. The purpose of this research was
to determine the disintegrant properties of sweet potato and pea starches in paracetamol
tablets. Sweet potatoes and peas are grown locally, hence can be used as alternative sources
of starch to corn starch so that the costs of production for pharmaceutical products that
require starch can be reduced. In this study, I extracted starch from peas and sweet potatoes
in the laboratory and then used it as a disintegrant to formulate paracetamol tablets using
the wet granulation method. From the results obtained, starch powders extracted from both
peas and sweet potatoes passed the tests that make them suitable for use for pharmaceutical
purposes, and the paracetamol tablets formulated using the two starches as disintegrants
had the desired disintegration time. However, the results indicated that peas starch had
better disintegrant properties than sweet potato starch when used as disintegrants in the
formulation of paracetamol tablets. All the paracetamol tablets disintegrated before 15
minutes as recommended by the Bp specification of disintegration time of less or equal to
15 minutes for uncoated tablets. The paracetamol tablets formulated using starch from peas
and sweet potatoes disintegrated within 9 minutes and 10 minutes respectively