Plant-based traditional medicine plays a key role in the development and advancement of modern studies by serving as a starting point for the development of novelties in drug discovery. Various modern drugs were extracted from traditional medicinal plants through the use of plant material following the ethno botanical leads from indigenous cures used by traditional medical systems. In developing countries and rural societies, the use of medicinal plants is both a valuable resource and necessity, and furthermore, it provides a real alternative for primary healthcare systems.

Plant extraction is a process that aims to extract certain components present in plants. It is a solid/liquid separation operation: a solid object (the plant) is placed in contact with a fluid (the solvent). The plant components of interest are then solubilised and contained within the solvent. The solution thus obtained is the desired extract.

Nature has bestowed our country with an enormous wealth of medicinal plants; therefore India has often been referred to as the Medicinal Garden of the world. Today, people around the globe are giving preference to alternative medicines such as ayurveda, naturopathy, homeopathy and herbal medicine. Herbal medicine is cost effective and less expensive than the medicines bought from an allopathic pharmacy. Increasing realization of the side effects of allopathic medicines, coupled with the growing awareness about the medicinal benefits as well as therapeutic effect of herbal products is pushing up the demand for herbal extracts, dietary supplement sand herbal-based beauty aids worldwide. Herbal extraction and processing is very vast field. Some of the known projects are, rose plantation, cultivation & rose oil extraction plantation, cultivation of medicinal plant & herbs, Kali mahendi (henna), aloevera gel, aloevera gel & powder, aromatic plants cultivation & processing, asparagus cultivation & processing, ayur
vedic churan & tablets, ayurvedic raw material from mercury a-singruph (hingula) or cinnabar (hgs), b-ras sindhoor, ayurvedic/herbal pharmacy, cough syrup, hair dyes (hinna based), herbal natural essential oil (steam distillation process), herbal shampoo & cream, herbal concentrate in the mfg. Of herbal drugs & concentrate, herbal extracts, herbal medicinal plant & processing, herbs cultivation & processing, herbs cultivation & processing, menthol crystal from menthol oil, patchouli oil, plantation, cultivation of medicinal plant & herbs, sindur roli bindi & gulal, tobacco based tooth powder, toilet & herbal soap, herbal capsules, herbal face paste, rajnigandha oil, amla cultivation, plantation, amla hair oil based on vegetable oil, aloe vera processing, artemisia vulgaris oil, aloevera gel, juice and powder, ayurvedic hair oil for colouring of hair oil, herbal wine, mehandi cone, hibiscus cultivation, herbal beer, azadirachtin from neem, neem based pesticide, moringa -miracle tree, etc.

An alliance between science and tradition

The origin of the extraction of active plant ingredients has been lost to time. It was in fact very early on that mankind discovered the benefits of plants and the first techniques for separating out what we now refer to as “extracts”.

The first extracts were essentially obtained through aqueous extraction or alcoholic fermentation, and according to procedures such as infusion, maceration, decoction and hydro distillation. The simplicity of these procedures, as well as the tools, materials and heating methods of the time meant that the extractor was a man of the arts rather than a scientist.

Today, this activity calls upon the use of precise automatons and adapted materials. It has benefited from advances in process engineering, photochemistry and analytics. Moreover, new technologies to assist extraction (high-pressure, microwaves, ultrasound, etc.) are being developed.

However, the notion of expertise in plant extraction remains to this day a balanced combination of the mastery of technical parameters, and tradition.

A technical process (The general process)

Plant extraction is solid/liquid extraction, eventually followed by purification stages. It is thus defined as an operation of the separation of one or several constituents (solid or liquid) contained in a solid object by solubilisation in a fluid. This fluid, generally known as a solvent, may be a liquid or a gas (water vapor or supercritical fluids).

In thermodynamics, the solid object is a homogeneous mixture in equilibrium, i.e. in the absence of external disturbances it will undergo no modification. This can be compared with the treatment of heterogeneous mixtures, which can be fractionated by filtration, decantation or centrifugation, for example.

In solid/liquid extraction, this disturbance consists of an exchange of thermic and mechanical energy with the surroundings, combined with the provision of a third element, the solvent. Following this disturbance, the solid is no longer in equilibrium and the solid-solvent system will advance towards a new equilibrium through mass transfer. The whole art of extraction is a question of understanding the parameters that influence nature, and the kinetics of this mass transfer from the solid to the liquid.

Several separation procedures implement solid raw plant materials and lead to the production of extracts:

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APPENDIX – A:

1.      COST OF PLANT ECONOMICS
2.      LAND & BUILDING
3.      PLANT AND MACHINERY
4.      FIXED CAPITAL INVESTMENT
5.      RAW MATERIAL
6.      SALARY AND WAGES
7.      UTILITIES AND OVERHEADS
8.      TOTAL WORKING CAPITAL
9.      COST OF PRODUCTION
10.      PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS
11.      BREAK EVEN POINT
12.      RESOURCES OF FINANCE
13.      INTEREST CHART
14.      DEPRECIATION CHART
15.      CASH FLOW STATEMENT
16.      PROJECTED BALANCE SHEET

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