Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Packing and cohesive properties of some locally extracted starches

O A Itiola , O A Odeku

Department of Pharmaceutics and Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria;

For correspondence:- O Itiola Email: oprofit@yahoo.com Tel:+234 802 291 2227

Published: 21 June 2005

Citation: Itiola OA, Odeku OA. Packing and cohesive properties of some locally extracted starches. Trop J Pharm Res 2005; 4(1):363-368 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v4i1.6

© 2005 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: The packing and cohesive properties of locally developed cassava, potato and yam starches have been characterised using the maximum volume reduction due to packing as expressed by the Kawakita constant a, and the angle of internal flow, θ, respectively.
Methodology: The starches were characterized for their particle size, shape and particle size distribution using optical microscopy. Tapping experiments were used to quantify the packing and cohesive properties of the starches. The volume reduction ability was estimated using the Kawakita equation.
Results: The shape factor of the starches provided a proportionality constant between the particle size and surface area. The rank order of the particle size and shape factor of the starches was yam>potato>cassava. The ranking of maximum volume reduction, a, for the starches was potato > cassava > yam while the ranking for the angle of internal flow,θ, an index of cohesiveness, was cassava > potato > yam. The values of these parameters depended on the physical properties of the starches.
Conclusion: The results obtained indicate that the physical properties of the particles affect the packing and cohesive properties of the starches, and are important in predicting the behaviour of the starches during handling and use in pharmaceutical preparations. These properties need to be closely controlled in pre-formulation studies.

Keywords: Packing and cohesive properties, starch, cassava, potato, yam.