Abstract

CHARACTERIZATION AND APPLICATIONS OF GREWIA GUM IN TABLETING

S. Mohamed Mujahith*, Dr. P. Venugopalaiah and Dr. Y. Prapurna Chandra

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Abstract

Grewia polysaccharide gum is a natural resource that could be used as an excipient in the pharmaceutical industry in Nigeria to reduce the costs of pharmaceutical products. Grewia gum was extracted from the inner stem bark of Grewia mollis. Grewia mollis is a widespread species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae, native to tropical Africa, Yemen and Oman. It is the main source of grewia gum, an edible polysaccharide mucilage, similar in its properties to tragacanth gum. Grewia gum is characterised by several techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, FT-IR spectroscopy. Grewia gum has been investigated for potential application in pharmaceutical dosage forms. The industrial extrapolation of the gum as, however, been slowed by the limited structural, toxicological, and stability data available on the gum. The slowly hydraded in water, dispersing and swealing to form a highly viscous dispersion exhibiting pseudoplastic flow behaviour. The polysaccharide gum is thermally stable and may have application as stabilizer or suspending agent in foods, cosmetics and in pharmaceuticals. It may have application as a polymer matrices in sustained release solid dosage forms, binders in tablets, stabilizers or suspending agents in liquid dosage forms and in bioadhesive drug delivery systems. This paper highlights the grewia mollis plant and discuss the physicochemical properties and applications of grewia gum with emphases on its pharmaceutical potentials.

Keywords: Grewia gum, Grewia mollis plant, Physicochemical properties, thermal analysis, applications.