Abstract:
Among the numerous antidiabetic drugs, acarbose is the most extensively used digestive
enzyme inhibitor for the treatment of Type-II diabetes. A simple and rapid UV-Vis
spectroscopy method reported in the literature was modified and successfully
implemented for the determination of acarbose in aqueous media. The method is based on
the formation of a green-colored complex of acarbose with alkaline potassium
permanganate. Concentration (in the range of 10-50 ppm) is proportional to the visible
light absorbance at 426 nm wavelength, therefore, the above parameters were selected for
the quantitative determination of acarbose in aqueous solution. The Beer–Lambert law is
obeyed in the above-mentioned range with a coefficient of determination (r2
) value of
0.9826. The acarbose concentration in commercial tablets was determined using this
method and the recovery was 99.65 % for 40 ppm solution. Short biological half-life and
more side effects of acarbose have been recurring problems, owing to its low
bioavailability and low patient tolerance, respectively. The controlled release of a
therapeutic agent to patients is gaining prodigious importance during the recent time and
clay minerals play a major role in modulating drug delivery. The present work is focused
on the intercalation of acarbose into montmorillonite (MMT) as a controlled release drug
carrier. MMT is an aluminosilicate clay composed of tetrahedral layers of silica stacked
between octahedral layers of alumina with negatively charged surfaces. Due to its high
cation exchange capacity and large specific surface area, MMT is extensively used in the
formulation of various pharmaceutical products. In this study, acarbose was successfully
incorporated into MMT by stirring MMT in a 100 ppm acarbose solution and showed
22.4% intercalation at pH 6. Acarbose intercalated MMT was characterized by X-ray
diffraction and Fourier transformed infrared and the presence of N-H stretching peak at
1632 cm-1
and increase of d-spacing confirmed the successful intercalation of acarbose
into the interlayers of MMT. The releasing properties of the synthesized acarbose-MMT
composite would be investigated in the future.
.Keywords: Acarbose, Montmorillonite, Intercalation, Drug delivery, Characterization
