Effect of water on deformation and bonding of pregelatinized starch compacts

This paper evaluates the tabletting process of pregelatinized starch with different moisture contents on the basis of the stress deformation curve. Simplification of the stress deformation curve enables the amount of elastically stored energy to be calculated. That stored energy, which is the driving force for relaxation of tablets, increases with compaction speed and decreases with increasing water activity of the material. This paper suggests a relation between absorbed water and stored energy. Interparticle bonding, however, also decreases with increasing amounts of adsorbed water. The decrease in stored energy with increasing water activity of the pregelatinized starch tends to produce stronger tablets at higher water activities, whereas the decrease of particle bonding with increasing water activity tends to produce weaker tablets at higher water activities. Given these two counteracting effects, the final tablet strength is a balance between viscoelasticity and bonding, resulting in a water activity where tablet strength has a maximum. In this case, the optimum water activity is about 0.70. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.