Disintegrants
Disintegrants are used to make tablets disintegrate quickly in water, saliva or gastric juice. This ensures that the active ingredients are already released in the upper part of the digestive tract, the active ingredient is quickly released and thus absorbed, or that the tablets can be taken more comfortably (e.g. effervescent tablets ).
Tablet disintegrants are used for drugs , effervescent tablets for the preparation of drinks, but also for technical purposes, such as in detergent tablets for the washing machine.
In addition to having a disintegrating effect, the tablet disintegrant can also fulfill other purposes, such as fortifying a beverage with carbonic acid, as a flavor-determining component (e.g. citric acid ) or thickening a liquid.
One distinguishes
- Substances that swell due to water absorption ( starch , cellulose derivatives, alginates , polysaccharides , dextrans , cross-linked polyvinylpyrrolidone )
- Substances that develop gas through a chemical reaction with water ( sodium hydrogen carbonate , citric and tartaric acid ).
- Substances that act as hydrophilicizing agents to improve the wetting of the particles and thus facilitate their dissolution in water (e.g. polyethylene glycol sorbitan fatty acid ester ).