Commonly Used Excipients and Their Functions
Start with the big picture
Excipient selection helps address practical formulation needs. Diluents add bulk to support accurate dosing, while binders promote cohesion and tablet integrity. Disintegrants help tablets break apart; lubricants reduce friction and adhesion during manufacture, and glidants improve powder flow. Other classes support drug wetting or solubility, maintain pH, or protect products from microbial growth, oxidation, and metal-catalyzed degradation. Sweeteners and related ingredients can improve patient acceptability. Understanding each excipient’s role provides a useful foundation for connecting formulation ingredients with manufacturing and product performance. The full lesson organizes these functions by excipient class and develops the examples in greater detail.
What you'll learn
- Explain why excipients are included in pharmaceutical formulations.
- Distinguish the functions of diluents, binders, and disintegrants.
- Describe how lubricants and glidants support tablet manufacture.
- Identify excipient classes that affect wetting, solubility, pH, or product protection.
- Relate sweeteners and other acceptability-focused excipients to formulation needs.
Continue your study
Work through the complete notes and reinforce the topic with the study tools available in the full lesson.
