Influence of process variables on release properties of paracetamol tablets

A 2³ factorial experimental design has been used to quantitatively study individual and interaction effects of the nature of binder (N), binder concentration (c) and relative density of tablet (d) on the disintegration time (DT) and dissolution times, t₁, t₅₀ and t₉₀, of paracetamol tablet formulations. The factorial design was also used to study the quantitative effects of pregelatinization of starch binders on these parameters, i.e., N, c and d. In general, the most common ranking of the individual effects on DT, t₁, t₅₀ and t₉₀ for native/native, pregelatinized/pregelatinized and native/pregelatinized starch binder formulations was c > d > N. For interaction effects, the most common ranking was N-c > c-d > N-d for all formulations. The results generally showed that c can considerably affect DT, t₁, t₅₀ and t₉₀ of the tablets.