Ethyl vanillin incorporated chitosan (EV/CS) can improve its excipient performances evaluated by direct compressing tablet.

Chitosan (CS) is lack of applications in pharmaceutical industry due to its lower compression density and instability during tablet process. This study mainly focus on the synthesis of ethyl vanillin incorporated CS(EV/CS) via Schiff base reaction and the evaluation of application as pharmaceutic excipient. Results of FT-IR showed that there is a typical amide peak in EV/CS that the 1640 cm⁻¹ can be attributed to –C = N– bond and 1518 cm⁻¹ can be attributed to backbone of benzene but not in CS raw material. Compared with the control, XRD of EV/CS have additional 2θ angle of 44°, 64° and 77° diffraction peaks except that the 2θ = 20° of EV is still existed. More slower weight loss of EV/CS than that of CS in the range of 248–760 °C is also demonstrated by TGA analysis. ¹H NMR indicated there are intrinsic 7.5 and 7.1 ppm as well as emerging 4.2 ppm of chemical shift in EV/CS. The physical finger spectra from twelve indexes of EV/CS powder denotes quite differences in compressibility, fluidity and stability with that of CS. 5% content EV/CS of designed formulation can at most decrease the friability and disintegration time of the compressed tablet. In conclusion, the developed EV/CS is inclined to suitable for tablet as an excipient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]