Ethiopian potato is one of the tuber-bearing members of the family Lamiaceae. It is an indigenous crop in Ethiopia and important\nsource of starch. Unprocessed native starches are structurally weak and functionally restricted for application in pharmaceutical\ntechnologies. Consequently, starch is usually modified either chemically or physically to make it convenient for industrial use.\nThe aim of the study was to prepare and characterize acid-modified Ethiopian potato starch (AMEPS) and evaluate its\nfunctionality as a direct compressible excipient in tablet formulations. The extracted starch from Ethiopian potato tuber was\nmodified using 6% HCl concentration for 8 days, then dried using oven and spray drying techniques, and subsequently\nevaluated and compared with the native Ethiopian potato starch (NEPS) and S1500® as a direct compressible excipient. Acid\nmodification of the NEPS decreased the moisture content and swelling power while increased the percent solubility. The X-ray\ndiffraction revealed that both the NEPS and AMEPS have B-type crystal patterns. The AMEPS showed improved flowability\ncompared to the NEPS. This improvement was further enhanced by the spray drying process. The compactability study revealed\nthat the tensile strength of spray-dried AMEPS (16.76 kg/cm2) was significantly higher than that of the spray-dried NEPS\n(7.07 kg/cm2) and S1500® (11.66 kg/cm2). The AMEPS was less sensitive to lubricants compared to the NEPS and Starch 1500®.\nSimilarly, the dilution potential of the AMEPS was superior to the NEPS and S1500®. The AMEPS accommodated up to 50% of\nparacetamol while the NEPS and S1500® were able to hold only up to 30%. Pharmacopoeial specifications for disintegration and\ndissolution were met by the paracetamol tablets prepared by AMEPS. Thus, considering all the results obtained, spray-dried\nAMEPS could be a potential alternative directly compressible tablet excipient.
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