ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NATURAL MUCILAGE FROM LAGENARIA SICERARIA

Abstract

The products from natural sources have become an integral part of human health care system and serves as an alternative to synthetic products because of side effects, toxicity, local accessibility, eco-friendly nature and lower prices compared to important synthetic products. The natural polymers have always an exceptional property which makes them distinct from synthetic polymer and ash gourd is one such example which shows more valuable properties making it a useful excipient for wide range of applications. Development of new excipients is time consuming, involves tedious procedures and is highly expensive. Instead, identification of new uses for the existing substances is relatively inexpensive and less time consuming. Natural gums and mucilage's have been widely explored as pharmaceutical excipient. Mucilage's are polysaccharide complexes formed from sugar and uronic acid units. Mucilage's form slimy masses in water are typically heterogeneous in composition. The pulp and seeds of Ash gourd contain a proportion of mucilage and it also being used for different therapeutic purposes. However there are no reports on isolation and characterization of mucilage of Benincasa hespida. Hence the present study was designed for isolation and characterization of mucilage from the pulp and seeds of Benincasa hespida and explores its use as a pharmaceutical excipient. Various methods to isolate mucilage were tried and simple, economical and optimum method was developed. Physicochemical properties of Benincasa hespida such as appearance, odour, solubility, Bulk and Tapped Densities, Hausner's Ratio, swelling index, pH, compressibility and Angle of Repose were studied.