Friday, December 19, 2014

Experiment 5: Content of Ibuprofen (assay)

Title
Content of ibuprofen (assay)


Date of experiment
4th December 2014


Objective
To analyze the content of Ibuprofen in the tablet.


Introduction

A tablet does not consist solely of active ingredient but in fact it is a mixture of active ingredients and excipients, this is to avoid overdosing. Besides, excipients are also added to enhance the flow properties, disintegration, rate of dissolution or to be said that to increase the bioavailability. Content of active ingredient in certain oral dosage form, such as tablets and capsules, can be determined using the standard assays that are found in British Pharmacopoeia. 

Thus, a tablet with a weight of 500mg contains excipients such as diluents, disintegrant, binding agent, lubricant, glidant, adsorbents depend on what kind of dosage form and how the drug works. In this experiment, Ibuprofen tablet 400mg is used to test its content of active ingredient.


Materials
0.6g of Ibuprofen powder, chloroform, ethanol (96%), phenolphthalein solution, 0.1M sodium hydroxide.


Apparatus
100mL beaker, 250ml conical flask, filter paper, filter funnel, weighing machine, weighing boat, hair dryer, burette, 100mL measuring cylinder.


Procedures

1.      20 Ibuprofen tablets are selected at random and are weighed and crushed into powder form.
2.      Powder containing 0.5g of Ibuprofen is extracted by 20mL chloroform for around 15minutes and  it is filtered through a filter paper.
    
                    







3.      The residue is washed with 3 x 10mL chloroform and the filtrate is evaporated just to dryness in a current of air. The residue is then dissolved into 100mL of ethanol (96%) which is neutralized with phenolphthalein solution.

4.      The solution is titrated with 0.1M sodium hydroxide to end point with phenolphthalein solution as an indicator. The content of Ibuprofen is determined if each mL of 0.1M sodium hydroxide used is equivalent to 0.02063g C13H18O2.
        




Results

Titration:

                  Initial reading of 0.1M sodium hydroxide    = 25mL
                  Final reading of 0.1M sodium hydroxide     = 33.2mL
                  Volume of 0.1M sodium hydroxide used     = 8.2mL


Given that 1mL of 0.1M sodium hydroxide is equivalent to 0.02063g C13H18O2,
So, the weight of Ibuprofen in the tablet is 8.2 x 0.02063g = 0.1691g.

From the experiment, the percentage of Ibuprofen content is
= 0.1691g/0.5000g x 100%
= 33.82%



Discussion

   In order to formulate a successful dosage form, the tablets should contain 90% ~ 110% of the labelled Ibuprofen according to the standard stated in British Pharmacopoeia(B.P). Any value outside the range of the standard is considered as a failed formulation in the B.P test for content of active ingredient. This experiment is used to analyze the content of Ibuprofen in the tablet. From the results we obtained, it only contains 33.82%  of Ibuprofen if compared to the labeled products. This value is not in the range of the standard of B.P. Therefore, this formulation has failed the B.P test. The test is carried out to achieve the uniformity of content in tablet.

   The value that we get is not in compliance with the standard in B.P due to some errors occured throughout the experiment. First reason is that the filtrate did not evaporate to dryness or excess heat supplied that caused the degradation of Ibuprofen content. Secondly, parallax error may occur when taking the reading of burette during titration, in which the eye level of observer is not parallel to the level of meniscus. Thirdly, the burette tips may contain air bubbles. Lastly, the improper filtration of extract through the filter paper will contribute to an inaccurate result. Chloroform is a volatile liquid, hence some of it may evaporate, leading to the decrease in the amount of filtrate produced.


Conclusion

The content of Ibuprofen is 0.1691g. The tablets that we tested contain 33.82% of Ibuprofen which do not comply with the standard of B.P which is 90% ~ 110% of the content. Therefore, the tablets have failed the B.P test due to the inconsistent content of Ibuprofen in the tablets.



References





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