Available online at www.scholarsresearchlibrary.com Scholars Research Library Der Pharmacia Lettre, 2014, 6 (3):31-39 (http://scholarsresearchlibrary.com/archive.html) ISSN 0975-5071 USA CODEN: DPLEB4 31 Scholar Research Library Okra mucilage act as a potential binder for the preparation of tablet formulation Biswajit Biswal 1 *, Nabin Karna 1 and Rashmika Patel 2 1 Dept. of Pharmaceutics, B. Pharmacy College Rampura, Gujarat, India 2 Dept. of Pharmacognosy, B. Pharmacy College Rampura, Gujarat, India _____________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT The present study was carried out with an aim of studying the ability of polysaccharide extracted from Abelmoschus esculentus (AE) to be used as a Binder in Drug delivery systems. Keeping in view the aim, the natural mucilaginous substances were collected from AE by Ethanol precipitation method and were undergone identification tests, quantitative determination of pectin by Carbazole tests and identification tests were carried out by FT-IR. After extraction of the mucilage these were used as a binder in various concentrations in the preparation of paracetamol tablet. Keywords: Okra mucilage, Binder, Carbazole test, Paracetamol _____________________________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION The okra plant, Abelmoschus esculentus (AE) Moench, a native plant from Africa, is now grown in many other areas such as Thailand, the Middle East and the southern states of the USA. The okra pod is often used as a vegetable. Its water extracts contain thick slimy polysaccharides and are used to thicken soups and stews [1, 2] . It is a high value functional fruit ingredient available in markets in the form of white to light brown powders and is used as gelling agents in several marketed products in jam, gellies etc [3] . This study was done with an aim to prepare PCM tablet by wet granulation method and direct compression by using okra mucilage as binding agent. The powdered mucilaginous substances were isolated from AE by Ethanol precipitation method [4] and identification tests of pectin in the natural mucilaginous extracts were done [5] . The identification tests shows the presence of pectin in the natural mucilaginous substances isolated from AE and the quantitative determination of pectin in the mucilaginous substances of AE was done by Carbazole test [6] . Thus the physical mixtures of model drug (Paracetamol) in solid form along with a series of natural polysaccharide isolated from AE was studied by Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). MATERIALS AND METHODS Fresh Okra fruit was collected from the local market of Godhra, Paracetamol was obtaining as a gift sample from Orley laboratories pvt.ltd. Ahmadabad, Crosspovidone from Chemdyes Corporation. Magnesium stearate from Signet chemicals, MCC 101 and Talc from S.D Fine chem., Ethanol from Triveni Chemicals. Methods of extraction and isolation of mucilage from Okra fruit Extraction of the mucilage Aqueous Extraction The natural mucilage substances was extracted using water as the Extracting medium