Question

what is the purpose of determining the degree of polymerisation in microcrystalline cellulose raw material in the formulation of drugs eg Panadol.

Answer 1

Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is regarded as one of the most important tabletting ingredients(binder), because of the excellent binding properties. The MCC also enables the tablets to be manufactured through direct compression, which is an economical technique to produce tablets in large scale. The degree of polymerization of MCC greatly influences the physicochemical properties and highly polymerised versions serve effectively as the disintegrating agents for the tablet( eg. Panadol) and MCC with a lower degree of polymerization are usually poor disintegrating agents. This makes the determination of the degree of polymerization in the MCC important.