Compactibility and compressibility studies of Assam Bora rice starch Mohammad Zaki Ahmad a , Sohail Akhter b , Mohammed Anwar b , Mahfoozur Rahman a , Mohammad Ahsan Siddiqui b , Farhan Jalees Ahmad b, ⁎ a Dreamz College of Pharmacy, Khilra-Meramesit, Mandi-175036, India b Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi-62, India abstract article info Article history: Received 4 November 2011 Received in revised form 2 March 2012 Accepted 3 March 2012 Available online 9 March 2012 Keywords: Assam Bora rice starch Tableting properties Direct compression Lubricant sensitivity Heckel analysis Kawakita plot A comparison study was made on the powder flow characteristics, tableting properties of experimental Assam Bora rice starch, obtained from the variety Aghuni Bora of Oryza sativa and the mechanical properties of tablets made up of it with those of official Starch 1500 ® . The influences of physical and geometrical prop- erties of both the starch were evaluated with regards to their compression properties. It has been found that Assam Bora rice starch reflects better physical characteristics such as higher bulk and tap densities, less poros- ity, better powder packing ability, minimum lubricant sensitivity, large surface area and improved flowabil- ity. Apart from that the mechanical properties, such as toughness and Young's modulus of Assam Bora rice starch were also compared with that of Starch 1500 ® . It has been also brought into result that compactibility of Assam Bora rice starch was not affected by the blending time. Further compaction properties of the exper- imental starch were evaluated by using Kawakita and Heckel equations and compared well with those of Starch 1500 ® . The result obtained shows that it mainly deforms by plastic deformation. Their onset of plastic deformation and strain rate sensitivity as compared to that of Starch 1500 ® demonstrates its potential use as a direct compression filler-binders. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Tablet manufacturing is a tedious task, encompassing the wet and dry granulation methods especially due to the involvement of a series of unit operations as well as the potential cost consideration. A more possible attractive interest and option for manufacturing of tablets by direct compression (DC) by the pharmaceutical industry is due, to its cost effectiveness as it requires fewer processing steps, stability to- wards moisture and heat, faster dissolution, less wear and tear of punches and simplified validation to meet the requirement of current good manufacturing practices [1]. The availability of new excipients, newer grades of existing excipients and advanced mechanized tech- nology such as positive die feeding and precompression stages has led to a perceptible shift of direct compression process towards the tablet manufacturing technology. Several directly compressible vehi- cles (DCVs) with free flow and better compaction properties have been developed in recent years [1–7] and still many others are under development for better performance. As a result, many excipients have been introduced for the last five decades to the pharmaceutical market as filler-binders for tablets, prepared by direct compression. Starches and their derivatives from several natural resources are extensively investigated for their well known and safety application in formulation development of tablets for various purposes. On answering to this investigation towards several natural starches, rice starch have proved to be much better compaction properties as compared to potato, maize and tapioca starches for the manufacturing of tablets [8]. Assam Bora rice, locally known as Bora Chaval is widely distributed throughout upper Assam in North East region of India, characterized by its high amylopectin contents, and was first introduced in Assam from Thailand or Myanmar by Thai-Ahoms [9–13]. The potential use of Assam Bora rice starch in the formulation of matrix tablet and compression coated tablet for colon targeting has been previously reported by Ahmad and co-workers [10,11]. The current study focuses upon the performance and tableting prop- erties of Assam Bora rice starch as a directly compressible vehicle in contrast to commercially available direct compression excipient, Starch 1500 ® . 2. Material and methods 2.1. Materials Assam Bora rice was procured from the local villagers of Dibrugarh district of upper Assam. Starch 1500 ® was kindly supplied by Anshul Agencies, Mumbai as a gift sample. All other chemicals were of ana- lytical reagent grades. Powder Technology 224 (2012) 281–286 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9810720387. E-mail address: farhanja_2000@yahoo.com (F.J. Ahmad). 0032-5910/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2012.03.004 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Powder Technology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec