Isolation and Characterization of Mucilage from Cinnamon verum

Abstract

From the last few decades the importance of search for natural polymer as pharmaceutical excipients has been increasing due to their various advantages. Natural polymer has been used in different pharmaceutical formulations. They are easily available, non-toxic, biodegradable and less cost. The synthetic polymers used as excipients suffer from many disadvantages such as high cost, toxicity, non-biodegradable and environmental pollution caused during their synthesis. In the present study, mucilage was isolated from the bark of Cinnamon verum. The mucilage was extracted using distilled water and isolated by the two methods such as precipitation with ethanol and acetone. The mucilage was characterized by various physicochemical properties such as solubility, pH, swelling index, loss on drying and preliminary phytochemical studies. The micrometric properties of mucilage such as bulk and tapped densities, Carr’s index, Hausner’s ratio and angle of repose were also evaluated. The result showed that extracted Cinnamon mucilage exhibited good flow properties (Angle of repose 20°.45”), loss on drying was 1.6%, Swelling index was 31.8% and pH was found to be 7.0. Extracted mucilage swells in water and slightly soluble in organic solvents. The preliminary phytoconstituents studies showed the presence of carbohydrates, mucilage and phenolic compounds. FT-IR studies show that presence of O-H and aliphatic C-H stretching. Results of evaluated parameters showed that cinnamon derived mucilage can be used as pharmaceutical excipients to formulate different dosage form. It has acceptable pH and organoleptic properties, so can be easily used in various dosage form.