Preparation of medicinal carbon tablets by modified wet compression method

Abstract

Background: Although medicinal carbon (MC) is useful to treat intoxications caused by orally taken toxic chemicals or toxins, high dose of MC is a burden on patients and sticks to oral mucosa or throat. A tablet dosage form of MC is useful to solve such problems. Fast-disintegration, adequate hardness, and quick and high-adsorption potential are required for MC tablets. Method: A modified wet compression method using carboxymethylcellulose sodium (CMC-Na) solution as binder solution was newly developed. Croscarmellose sodium (CC-Na) was used as a disintegration agent. MC granules, binder solution, and MC granules were placed in the cylinder in that order, and the resultant mass was compressed. The obtained tablets were examined for hardness, disintegration rate, and acetaminophen adsorption profiles. Results: The tablets, produced with MC granules containing CMC-Na and CC-Na at 10% each and using 280 μL of 2.5% (w/w) CMC-Na binder solution in compression, showed adequate hardness (more than 4 kg), short disintegration time (less than 6 min), and almost the same acetaminophen adsorption profile as intact MC powder. Conclusion: The modified wet compression with CMC-Na and CC-Na is suggested to be useful to obtain MC tablets with good quality.

Keywords:

• Acetaminophen adsorption
• carboxymethylcellulose sodium
• croscarmellose sodium
• disintegration time
• hardness
• medicinal carbon tablet