The Lubricant Properties of LUBRITAB

The lubricant properties of LUBRITAB, a hydrogenated vegetable oil was evaluated in this study and compared to magnesium stearate, a widely used tablet lubricant, in three direct compression tablet formulations. An instrumented rotary tablet press was used to determine the unit ejectionforce of tablets made from the direct compression formulations. The effect of the lubricants on tablet hardness, friability, disintegration and dissolution rate were also determined. Tablets containing LUBRITAB at a concentration level of 3 - 4 (% w/w) gave values of unit ejection force comparable with those of tablets containing 2% magnesium stearate. The tablets containing LUBRITAB exhibited better physical properties than tablets containing magnesium stearate. Prolonged mixing improved the lubricating efficiency of LUBRITAB and had no deleterious effect on the disintegration of ascorbic acid tablets. LUBRITAB appears to be a good alternative to magnesium stearate in the formulations evaluated.KEYWORDS: LUBRITAB, unit ejection force, hardness, friability, disintegration time, dissolution rate, direct compression tablet formulations