One of the primary considerations in preparing pharmaceutical ointments is the properties of different types of ointment base. The types of ointment bases used as vehicles for drugs are selected or designed for optimum delivery of the drugs and also to contribute emolliency or other quasi-medicinal qualities. Ointments properties vary since they are designed for specific uses, ease of application or extent of application. The purpose of the lab was to learn the difference between different types of ointment bases. In this experiment, we learned how to measure the ability of each ointment base to incorporate solvents using purified water, alcohol and glycerin. Introduction:
Ointments are semisolid preparation intended for external application to skin or mucous membrane. Ointments are mainly composed of medication and base. An ointment base plays an important role because it serves as the vehicle and function as the carrier of the medicinal agents in the product. The quality of an ointment base affects the overall quality of an ointment, the release rate of the medication and the absorption rate into the body. According to the physical characteristics, ointment bases are classified into four categories, oleaginous bases, emulsion base, absorption base and water-soluble base.
* Purified water
* Cold cream
* PEG ointment
* Anhydrous lanolin
* White ointment
* Hydrophilic petrolatum
* Hydrophilic ointment
1. Calibrate the dropper with purified water, alcohol and glycerin. Record the drops used to fill 3ml of each of the solvent. 2. Measure 3g of each of the ointment base.
3. Slowly add until ointment stop uptake the solvents.
4. Calculate how much solvent can be incorporated to each ointment. Results
Part 1 dropper calibration
| # of drops| Volume of each drop|