Influence of controlled drying conditions on the effective moisture diffusivity, energy consumption and picroside content of Picrorrhiza kurroa rhizomes

3^rd International conference on Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering

September 14-15, 2015 Baltimore, USA

Vasudha Agnihotri, Rajesh Joshi, Arvind Jantwal, S K Nandi and Kireet Kumar

GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment & Development, India

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Bioproces Biotechniq

Abstract :

The extracts of runners and roots of Picrorhiza kurroa Royle ex Benth. (family: Scrophulariaceae, local/ trade name: â��Kutkiâ��), an important endangered medicinal herb endemic to alpine Himalaya, is traditionally being used to treat disorder of liver and upper respiratory tract, reduce fevers, dyspepsia, chronic diarrhea, scorpion sting and also as antipyretic. Besides the presence of other active constituents, it contains two iridoid glycosides, picroside-I and II, as major bioactive compounds. Drying of rhizome under controlled conditions can preserve the plant material without affecting the concentration of important active ingredients. Hence a study has been undertaken to investigate the influence of temperature and relative humidity, maintained in climate chamber, on effective moisture diffusivity, specific energy requirement and % picroside I & II content. Two well defined falling rate periods at all the drying conditions were obtained. In first falling rate period, values of Deff varied from 2.2E-10 to 1.21E-09 m2 s-1 and in the second falling rate period, values of Deff varied from 3.34E-10 to 4.03E-09 at all drying conditions. Specific energy requirement for thin layer drying of P. kurroa rhizomes were found to be in the range of 444.93- 1785.54 kWh/ kg at 30�°C to 60�°C temperature with relative humidity of 30% to 80%. Picroside I and II contents were analyzed using RP-HPLC and the concentration of picroside-I was found varied from 1.88 to 10.69% and concentration of picroside-II varied from 8.31 to 34.07% in the dried extracts of the plant under different drying conditions. Temperature has shown significant effect (p<0.05) on picroside II content while both the relative humidity and temperature have shown significant effect (p<0.05) on picroside I and II content.

Biography :

Email: vasudha@gbpihed.nic.in