DEVELOPMENT OF NON SODIUM EFFERVESCENT TABLET OF PARACETAMOL USING ARGININE CARBONATE

Effervescent tablets or granules are uncoated and generally contain acidic substances and carbonate or bicarbonate which reacts rapidly to release carbon dioxide when dissolved in water. There are various advantages of effervescent formulations such as fast onset of action, good stomach tolerance, improves palatability, enhanced permeability, but a major problem which is associated with these formulations is their sodium content which is present in the form of sodium bicarbonate. According to various guidelines the per day sodium intake is advised to be limited by 2400 mg. This excess sodium would produce health complications particularly to cardiac and renal patients. The main objective of present work was to use a non-alkali carbonate to avoid the problems which may occur due to presence of alkali carbonates in effervescent preparations. Arginine carbonate was found to be a suitable carbonate source as it has an additional advantage of being an amino acid source. Arginine carbonate was produced in the laboratory by saturating the solution of arginine in DM water with carbon dioxide and then dried on Rotavapor (Buchi) at 40^◦C and used as carbonate source. The effervescent tablets of paracetamol were developed for quick onset of action using arginine carbonate as alkali and citric acid as acid source respectively. The product was evaluated employing parameters like micromeritic properties, dispersion time, and carbon dioxide evolved and other relevant parameters. The developed product exhibited dispersion time of about 1.6 min. The optimized formulation passed the short term stability study.