A study on friability, hardness and fiber content analysis of fiber enriched milk tablet

This study was performed to analyze the friability, hardness and fiber content of fiber enriched milk tablet derived from five different local fiber sources includes carrot, spinach, dragon fruit, mango and watermelon. Cow milk is used to mix and complement the tablet as a protein source. The powder is prepared by spray drying and freeze drying Spray drying is performed on inlet air temperatures of 100 ̊C, 120 ̊C and 140 ̊C respectively. Mixture of fiber and milk is made in equal ratio with an addition of 15% maltodextrin as a carrier. The tablets formed are used for friability and hardness test while the powder is used for fiber content analysis. It is found that dragon fruit tablet formed at 140 ̊C inlet air temperature shows the highest friability with 11.42% of weight loss. While the second highest is spinach tablet at 100 ̊C and 120 ̊C with 9.30% and 9.28% respectively. The lowest friability is exhibited by watermelon tablet at 100 ̊C inlet air temperature with 0.1368%. In contrast, none of freeze dried tablets shows any weight loss hence they are not friable. For hardness test, every freeze dried tablets shows higher tensile strength than spray dried. Carrot tablet exhibits the highest tensile strength of 2.27 Newton. While the lowest is spray dried dragon fruit at 140 ̊C inlet air temperature with 0.16 Newton. In fiber content analysis, freeze dried mango shows the highest fiber content followed by freeze dried carrot and 140 ̊C of spray dried dragon fruit. While the lowest fiber content is 120 ̊C of spray dried carrot. It can be concluded that the higher the spray dry inlet air temperature, the more friable the tablet. While, high friability leads to lower hardness of tablets. In term of fiber content, the higher the spray dry inlet air temperature, the lower the fiber content accompanied by the maturity of fiber source as also a factor influencing the fiber content