Sunday 12 May 2013

Aloe Vera Farming Practice India: Processing

The term Aloe used in medicine stands for the dried juice, which flows from the transversely cut bases of the leaves. For the processing of "Aloe", the juice is allowed to drain from the cut leaves into vessels and then concentrated by evaporation, either spontaneously or frequently by boiling. The juice is colorless or yellow when obtained fresh from the leaves but becomes dark brown due to evaporation and boiling. Sun dried or concentrated "Aloe" juice over a fire gives an amorphous, opaque, waxy extract called hepatic or livery aloe. When the juice is concentrated rapidly over a strong fire, the product obtained on cooling is amorphous and semitransparent and is called "glassy" or "vitreous" aloe.

Besides the dry juice, gel is also very important product of Aloe Vera, The mucilaginous pulp from the leaf, which is mainly carbohydrate in nature, is used in cosmetic industries and also in treatment of many human diseases. The leaves left over after the removal of their exudates is cut open and mucilage is scraped out with a blunt edged knife for isolation of gel. Extracted mucilage is stirred vigorously in a blender to make it homogeneous mixture (solution). This mixture is strained with the help of muslin cloth and then filtered. The gel is precipitated from the extract slowly adding acetone while stirring. This whole content is kept for overnight and the gel is isolated by centrifugation. The gel is re-dissolved in slightly warm water and transferred to a tube of known weight. It is dried at a high temperature(below 100 C)

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