Preparation and evaluation of medicinal carbon tablets with different saccharides as binders.

Medicinal carbon (MC) tablets were prepared with several saccharides to improve the formability and absorption ability of MC tablets made with maltitol (MT). The MC tablets were made by the wet granule compression method, in which maltitol, xylitol (XYL), mannitol (MAN), and sorbitol (SOR) were used as binders. Granule and tablet formability, tablet strength, disintegration, and MC adsorption potential were evaluated for each formulation. Acetaminophen (AA) was used in checking effect of binders on adsorption. Due to low water solubility, MAN was added only up to 30% (w/w) of MC; in greater concentrations, the tablet could not be formed. However, tablets formed easily when using XYL or SOR at 120% (w/w) of the MC amount. This result was similar for MT. The XYL, SOR, and MT tablets displayed sufficient hardness and rapid disintegration. The tensile strength of the SOR tablets exceeded that of the MT tablets, which in turn had greater tensile strength than the XYL tablets. In addition, the XYL tablets disintegrated more quickly than the MT tablets, which disintegrated more quickly than the SOR tablets. The MC adsorption capacity was slightly decreased by XYL and SOR, but to a lesser extent than the decrease caused by MT. Overall, XYL and SOR were superior to MT as binding agents for preparation of MC tablets. Therefore, we recommend preparing the tablets with XYL or SOR as a binder using the wet granule compression method to produce a compact dosage form of MC.