Formulation and Evaluation of Paracetamol Tablets to Assess Binding Property of Orange Peel Pectin

The aim of present work was to extract pectin from dried orange fruit peels to assess its binding property in tablets using paracetamol as model drug. Initially orange fruit peel powder was subjected to simple water based soxhlet extraction and pectin was isolated using ethyl alcohol as precipitating agent. Thereafter, four batches were formulated using pectin in different proportions. A reference batch of starch was also prepared to carry out the comparative study and to assess the binding property of pectin. Precompression and post compression studies were performed for each formulation. In-vitro release data was subjected to application of various kinetic models. The results obtained for all pre-compression and post compression parameters were found within acceptable range of pharmacopoeias. On the basis of drug release behavior it can be summarized that release of all four batches under study was less than that of reference batch. Orange peel pectin can act as excellent binder in dosage forms. Since it is of natural origin and orange peels available at low cost it may prove to be better binder over commercially used synthetic binders.