CHEMICAL COMPOSITION EVALUTION OF VACUUM TRAY DRYER

MEDICINAL PLANT USING RESPOSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY.

INTRODUCTION
The medicinal plant constitutes an effective source of both traditional and modern medicines, herbal
medicines has been shown to genuine utility and about 80% of rural population depends on it as primary
health care. According to the data collected by WHO in 2005.

These are the following facts that tells that medicinal plants are the richest bio-resources.

 Drugs of traditional system of medicine.

 Modern medicines.
 Food supplements.
 Folk medicines.
 Pharmaceutical intermediates.
 Chemical entities for synthetic drugs.

Drying of medicinal plants: -

 It is the most common method of medicinal plant preservation and, due to high investment and
energy costs, drying is also a large expense in medicinal plant production.
 In these cases, low drying temperature are required to protect the sensitive active ingredients.
 So, the main objective is to find the optimum drying temperature for various medicinal plants.
 Drying is the last stage of manufacturing process.
 It is the final removal of water from material.
 It is the removal of all or most of the liquid by supplying latent heat to cause thermal
vaporization.
 Most Pharmaceutical materials are not completely free from moisture but contains some residual
water, which may vary with the temperature and humidity.
Purpose of drying: -
 Drying makes the materials more convents in packing, transporting, preserving, fabricating, and
applying improves quality of products.
 To collect healthy medicine from herbal plants.
 Less cost as comparing to the chemical drugs.
 Less intake of chemicals to our body as medicines.
  In drying processes, the main operation usually carried out on solid materials.
e.g. Powders or products
 Drying is the case where most of the cases means the removal of relatively small amounts of
water from solid.
 In most cases drying involve the removal of water at temperature below its boiling point.
 In drying, water is usually removed by circulating air over the material in order to carry away the
water vapour.
Types of Drying Method: -
When considering how to dry a material, the following points should be considered.
 Heat sensitivity of the material being dried.
 The necessity for asepsis.
 Nature of the liquid to be removed.
 The scale of the operation.
The General Principles for Efficient Drying: -
 Large surface area for heat transfer.
 Efficient heat transfer to supply sufficient latent heat of vaporization.
 Efficient mass transfer of evaporated water through any surrounding boundry
layers.
 Efficient vapour removal i.e. low relative humidity air
 Now a days various types of drier used these are:-
1. Drum dryer
2. Spray dryer
3. Dynamic convective dryre (e.g.-fluidized-bed dryer)
4. Vacuum oven
5. Radiation drying of wet solids
6. Tray dryer
7. Hot air oven
8. Vacuum tray dryer
Rather from the various types of dryer we used only 3t types of dryer for our experiment
purpose.
1. Tray dryer: -

Directed circulation warm air. Air flows in the direction of the arrows over each shelf in
turn. Wet material is spread on shallow trays resting on the shelves. Electrical elements or
 steam- heated pipes are positioned. So that the air is periodically reheated after it has cooled
by passage over the wet material on one self before it passes over the material on the next.
Passage of the water vapor through the boundary layers present at the surface into turbulent
air stream. For this to occur the relative humidity of the air must be kept well below the
saturation level and the boundary layers small. These are achieved by

 Having a brisk turbulent air flow over the surface.

 By the periodic re heating of the air as the temperature falls.

Advantages of Tray Dryer:-

 Sterility can be maintained.

 Highest medicinal value retained.
 Very good fragrance of the product.
 Thermable materials can be dried.
 Denaturation does not occur ( loss of volatile material is less).
Disadvantages of tray dryer: -
 Drying time is long.
 Dissolved material can migrate to the upper surface of the bed or granules.
 Granules may aggregates owing to bridge formation at the point of contact of
the granules.
 Equipment or running cost are high.

Uses of Tray Dryer: -

Dryers are used to remove liquids or moisture from bulk solids, powders, parts,
continuous sheets or other liquids by evaporation or sublimation. Dryer can be broken up
into two main types: direct and indirect. Direct dryer convectively heat a product through
direct contact with heated air, gas or combusted gas product. Indirect dryer conductively
heat a product through contact with a heated wall.

Tray dryer is used for the best drying result in conventional process. It is a doubled
walled cabinet with single or two doors. The gap between two walls is filled with high
density fiber glass wool insulation material to avoid heat transfer. Doors are provided
with gaskets. Stainless steel trays are placed on the movable trolleys. Tray dryer is
provided with control panel board, Process timer, Digital temperature controller cum
indicator etc. Tray dryer is available in capacities ranging from 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192
trays.

Working Of Tray Dryer: -

In Tray dryer hot air is continuously circulated. Forced convection heating takes place to
remove moister from the solids placed in trays.

Simultaneously the moist air is removed partially.

Wet solid is loaded into the trays. Trays are the placed in the chamber.

Fresh air is introduced through in let, which passes through the heater and get heated up.

The hot air is circulated by means of fans at 2-5 meter per second.

Turbulent flow lowers the partial vapour pressure in the atmosphere and also reduces the
thickness of the air boundary layer.

The water is picked up by the air. As the water evaporates from the surface, the water
diffuses from the interior of the solid by the capillary action.

These events occur in a single pass of air. The time of contact is short and amount of
water picked up in a single pass is small.

Therefore the discharge air to the tune of 80-90 % is circulated back through the fans.
Only 10-20 % of fresh air is introduced.

Moist air is discharge through outlet. Thus constant temperature and uniform air flow
over the materials can be maintained for achieving uniform drying.

In case of the wet granules as in tablets and capsules drying is continued until the desired
moisture content is obtained.