In pharmaceutical industries microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is used as bulking agent. MCC is multifunctional excipient, thus when microcrystalline cellulose is used in formulation and other additional excipient quantities become less. It provides sufficient tensile strength and fast disintegration of the tablets. Tensile strength of tablets containing MCC depends on Degree of polymerization of MCC. Degree of polymerization of microcrystalline cellulose powder is directly related to hydrolysis reaction of wood pulp. We have prepared different grades of MCC, in which temperature, pressure and acid concentration are the same, only hydrolysis time has been changed. All four grades of HiCel™ microcrystalline cellulose had different DOP, these all four samples were used for makes the tablets. All tablets were manufactured by direct compression process and without mixing any pharmaceutical Active ingredient. Thereafter the tensile strength and thickness of tablets were evaluated. In this study, we find the correlation between hydrolysis reaction time and degree of polymerization of MCC powder, and second correlation is between degree of polymerization and tensile strength of tablet.
