1. What Is the History of Using Medicinal Herb Plant?

A History of the Uses of Herbs

Herbs have been used for many purposes, including as ingredients for medicinal products, beauty enhancers, fragrances and food. In the case of beauty enhancers, the natural com-ponents in herb products are easily absorbed by the human skin and are both safe and compatible with human body, as natural ingredients that have demonstrated no known toxicity. Natural products in skincare formulations have been shown to exhibit significant antioxidant, emollient, and UV–B protection properties. In the early nineteenth century, the first chemical analyses performed by scientists were utilized to determine the active ingredients from plant extracts, which subsequently led to the development of natural (traditional) medicines that had been passed historically through generations by word of mouth. Many of the herbs and spices used for food seasoning also yield useful medicinal compounds. Simple preparation methods for processing the plant herbs by boiling either the entire plant or selected parts of the plant have been employed by herbal medical practitioners for over 5,000 years.

China is the cradleland of using 

Medicinal Plant ,more than 12,000 medicinal plant had been recorded and discovered. In ancient China, doctor and pharmacist had already do a lot of research and invention on Medicinal Plant, so nowadays herb medicine is widely used in different kinds of diseases therapy treatment.

In China and other countries who are widely using medicinal plant or herb medicine for diseases treatment gets different herb medicine formulation which includes raw herb slices, herb soup, herb powder, herb pellet, herb paste, herb tablet, herb capsules, herb granules and herb injection medicine, etc. China is the earliest country to do medicinal plant extraction and concentration treatment in the world.

2. What is The Main Concept Of Medicinal Plant Herb Extraction?

Herbal Extraction is the processing way which adopts appropriate solvent or method to separate chemical ingredient from herbal plant.

3. Why People Choose Raw Herbal Extracts but not the Grinded Raw Herbal Powder?

Because Grinded Raw Herbal powder still contains other useless ingredient or ingredient which affect human body. Raw Herbal Extracts has the target ingredient which our human body needs.

4. How Many Main Active Ingredient In Different Medicinal Plant Herbs?

There are too much different Active ingredient in Medicinal Plant Herbs. We summarize it into 15 different kinds of species. They are all contains in herb extraction, Sugars and glycosides, Quinones, Phenylpropanoids, Flavonoids, Tanning, Terpenoids, Essential Oil, Volatile Oil, Steroids, Saponins, Alkaloids, Organic Acids, Plant Colorants, Amino/Enzyme/Protein, lipid and Wax, Inorganic ingredient,etc. All Above ingredient can be extracted by proper method from Herb extraction machine.

5. What Affects Herb Extraction Process on Extract Active Ingredient from Medicinal Plant?

There are three main factors main affect herbal extraction result, Extraction Solvent, Extraction Temperature, Extraction Pressure. Sometimes processing method will also affect herbal extraction result.

6. How To Make A Better Herbal Extracts Product?

Before you are going to produce herbal extracts, better to do experimental test first on different extraction solvent, extraction temperature and extraction pressure. Herbal Extraction is all about how we use correct Solvent with correct temperature to Break Plant Cell Wall to make Cell Sap comes out to solvent.

7. Can One Herbal Extraction Machine Working for Different Herbal Product?

Yes, you can use the same Herbal Extraction Machine for extracting different plant, but this is only works for Crude Herbal Extracts. If you need specific ingredient from Herbal Plant, you still need different purification equipment to do the process.

Herbal Extraction Machine

8. Do You Need Filtration Process For your Raw Herbal Extracts?

Yes, Normally raw herbal extracts includes different size particles, for achieving a particle less extract liquid, you need Filtration System before going to liquid evaporation process.

9. What You Need To Prepare Before You Are Going To Start Herb Extraction?

At first you need to know what kind of Medicinal Herbal Plant you are going to process and what finished product you want to get. Then you need to know your loading capacity per day. Then according to Herbal Extraction System size to check the factory room size, The factory is better to have cooling tower system for better cooling down the condenser. Of course, if you are worried on the start up investment, better to choose lab scale equipment first.

10. How Many Operator You need In One Batch Of Herbal Extraction Process?

Normally Herbal Extraction System comes with Manual Control Type and Automatic Control Type. If it is manual control Type, One extraction and concentration System requires 2-3 people for operating and monitoring the system. If it is Fully Automatic Type, Whole system requires one operator is very enough.

Extraction and Concentration Workshop Design

11. How Long Will One Batch Herbal Extraction Process Take?

If you are just taking crude Herbal Extracts, the whole batch takes 6-8 hours only.

12. How Many Different Processing Method of Herbal Extraction？

There total 8 different Standard Medicinal Plant Herbal Extraction Method. They are Solvent Extraction Method, Steam Distillation Method, Super Critical Fluid Extraction Method, Ultra Sonic Extraction Method, Micro Wave Extraction Method, High Pressure Extraction Method, Enzyme Extraction Method, Semi-bionic Extraction Method.

13. How Many Different Processing Method of Herbal Plant Oil Extraction?

There are mainly three different method for Oil Extraction: Cold Press, Heat Boiling Distillation 

and Steam Heating Distillation.and Steam Heating Distillation.But nowadays CBD Oil Extraction is very popular, CBD oil extraction adopts Solvent Extraction Method for achieving Final CBD oil.

14. What Is the Difference Between Extraction and Concentration?

Herbal Extraction adopts solvent to extract ingredient from Herbal Plant for getting liquid Extracts, Concentration means to Evaporate the Liquid Extracts for achieving concentrated Extracts.

15. What Is the Advantage and Disadvantage On Different Method of Herb Extraction Process?

16. How to Select Right Solvent for Medicinal Plant Herb Extraction Process?

A right solvent can Dissolve Target Ingredient from Herbal Plant Cell, but leave the impurity ingredient. Normally we Adopt Similarly Compatible theory which means Similar Feature Target Ingredient and Solvent can be compatible for Extraction Process. For Example, If your target Ingredient is Hydrophilicity, then you can use Water as Solvent for extraction.

17. How Do You Recover Your Solvent In Herb Extraction Process?

For heating Type Herbal Extraction Process, all of the equipment comes Condensing system for recovering solvent. But you need to take a note the Concentration Rate of recovered solvent is lower than original solvent, so you need to do further preparation or distillation again for getting desire concentration rate.

18. What Is Working Principle Solvent Herbal Extraction Process Method?

Solvent Herbal Extraction adopts appropriate solvent to dissolve your target ingredient from Herbal Plant. During this process, you can use heating or mixing or cooling or ultra sound for achieving better result.

19. What Is Working Principle Steam Distillation Herbal Extraction Process Method?

Steam-distillation includes a steam generation apparatus to supply steam to the mixture of solvent and plant raw mate-rial. Steam maybe supplied at a pressure and the corresponding saturation temperature that is sufficiently higher than the boiling point of the mixture in order to allow evaporation to take place at lower temperatures. Next, the evaporated mixture of water and compound flows into a condenser where it is condensed into a liquid mixture and later collected in a separator. The solvent is Finally evaporated and separated from the compound using a rotary evaporator.

20. What is Working Principle Super Critical Fluid Extraction Method?

Carbon dioxide at the supercritical state has a critical temperature and pressure of 31.1◦C and 73.8 bar, respectively. Under these conditions, CO2 exhibits both gas-like characteristics, with high diffusion coefficients and low viscosities, and liquid-like characteristics, with high solvating power properties. These features make supercritical CO2 a good fluid solvent. Both viscosity and diffusivity are factors that affect the penetration of solvent into the herbal mate-rials. Then use this fluid to extract your target ingredient from herbal plant.

21. What is Working Principle Ultra Sonic Herbal Extraction Method?

The solvent extraction of herbal materials can be improved through the use of ultrasonic power because of the mechanical effects resulted from the ultrasound process. This effect results in improved solvent penetration into the cellular materials via improved mass transfer within the herbal cells. In addition, the mechanical effects disrupt the biological cell walls, thereby resulting in the release of the cell contents such as herbal oils. In sonication processes, longitudinal waves are created as a sonic wave encounters a liquid medium, which creates regions of alternating compression and rarefaction (expansion) among the molecules of the medium.

22. What is Working Principle Micro Wave Extraction Process Method?

Microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) is a process that uses a liquid solvent, such as water or alcohol, to extract the active ingredients from herbs. In MAE, the enhanced extraction occurs as the result of changes in the vegetable cell structure caused by electromagnetic waves in MAE. On the other hand, in conventional extractions, the mass transfer of the phytochemicals occurs from inside (herbal particle) to the outside (solvent), although the heat transfer occurs from the outside (heat source) to the inside (herbal particle).

23. What is Working Principle Super High Pressure Extraction Method?

High pressure in this type of extraction method refers to cold, isostatic ultra-high hydraulic pressure. The ultra-high pressure extraction technique involves three steps: i)mixing herb with solvent, ii) extraction of the desired phytochemicals at high pressure, and iii) filtering of super-natant to remove solid particles (herbal residual).

24. How to Select Right Machine for Medicinal Plant Herb Extraction?

At first you need to clear what ingredient you are going to have from Herbal Plant, then what kind of finished form you need is also very important. Then we can start to choose correct processing method, Select production equipment will be the final step.

Normally if you are going to have Natural Plant Extracts powder or syrup, a standard Heat Reflux Extraction and Concentration system is very enough for you. This system can be used for Solvent extraction and water extraction, even equip with Ultra-sonic device is available.

If you are going to have specific ingredient in a high purity, it will be better you had experiment before and you have your own Process Engineering Team to select correct purification equipment.

25. How You Can Save Energy Consumption During Herb Extraction?

Normally in herbal extraction and concentration process requires lots of energy consumption, So nowadays fully automatic controlling system is very popular for saving energy. For Large Capacity Extraction and Concentration process LTPM China also had invented energy saving type MVR Evaporator and Electricity Concentrator for saving energy.

26. How You can Get Specific Ingredient from Herbal Extraction?

Adopts proper purification and separation process, you will get specific ingredient from Herbal Plant. Such as we can get pure Artemisinin from Artemisia Annua.

27. How Many Different Separation and Purification Method For Herbal Extraction?

You have more than Ten different methods for Herbal Extracts Liquid purification and separation, such as Crystallization, Membrane Separation, Normal Pressure HPLC,  Resin Column, Short Path Molecular Distillation and Liquid-Liquid Extraction, etc.