PHYTOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATION ON WITHANIA SOMNIFERA ROOT MARC GENERATED IN AYURVEDIC INDUSTRY

Abstract

Water extraction is a major process in Ayurvedic medicine manufacturing industry. This process involves water extraction of huge quantity of herbs, which culminates in the generation of large amount of marc or herbal residue. Usually the residue is either incinerated or converted to herbal manure. This paper investigates the marc of Withania somnifera roots obtained from Ayurvedic Industry for presence of valuable and potent bioactive phytochemicals. The chances of the phytochemicals getting altered by the process of prolonged heating is also looked into and found that no such genesis or degradation of phytochemicals leading to a new compound has occurred in the marc. As part of study, physicochemical analysis such as total ash percentage, acid insoluble ash percentage and extractive values are performed. Preliminary phytochemical analysis was carried out with different extracts, like hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol of both herb and marc which showed the presence of similar compounds. High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography finger printing and densitogram of hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts of marc and herb showed that there was a reduction in the concentration of the actives in marc. The densitogram of ethyl acetate extract showed absence of certain prominent peaks in marc. In the case of methanol extract the prominent peaks were present in the marc and the concentration of some major actives were reduced in the hexane extract of marc.