Improvement of Effervescent Tablet Disintegration Using Sodium Stearyl Fumarate as a Lubricant

Toshiaki Okado – SECTION MANAGER, NIPPON SODA CO.,LTD.; Edmont Stoyanov – Global Technical Director, NISSO CHEMICAL EUROPE GmbH

Introduction: While Sodium stearyl fumarate (SSF) is used as a lubricant in tablet manufacturing, Magnesium stearate (Mg-St) is the most widely used lubricant; however, delayed tablet disintegration due to its hydrophobic nature has been reported¹. In contrast, SSF minimizes disintegration delay due to its hydrophilic moiety². Effervescent tablets require rapid disintegration for better patient compliance. In a previous study with placebo tablets, we have discovered a faster disintegration time of the SSF-lubricated tablets compared to the Mg-St³. In the present study, we applied the same approach using effervescent tablets containing ascorbic acid as model API (active pharmaceutical ingredient).