Superdisintegrant Selection for Tramadol Dispersible Tablets

The selection of a suitable superdisintegrant for a rapidly disintegrating dosage form is of the utmost importance, since disintegration time (DT) is a critical parameter. An experimental design was implemented, to find out the effects of superdisintegrants (sodium starch glycolate, crospovidone, croscarmellose sodium and methacrylic copolymer with divinyl benzene), at 2, 4, 6% w/w, on tablet hardness, with respect to DT. Methacrylic copolymer with divinyl benzene (at 4 wt%) was selected as the best superdisintegrant, adequate for the formulation of dispersible Tramadol tablets. With increasing hardness, there was a considerable increase in DT at all concentrations of superdisintegrants. A combination of crospovidone and methacrylic copolymer with divinyl benzene showed a remarkable drop in DT to 0.33 min. The stability of the batch with lowest DT was also tested under various conditions and the results suggested that there was no degradation over the test period.