Vol. 10, Issue 10 (2021)

Author(s):
Natesh V Binnisha, L Nalina, R Mahendiran, K Rajamani and D Uma

Abstract:
Gymnema sylvestre is an important medicinal woody climber belonging to the family Asclepidaceae. The leaves of this plant are in use for over 2000 years to treat diabetes, giving it a prominent place in the indigenous system of medicine. Sun drying is followed conventionally for drying Gymnema leaves. As sun drying has different varied environmental condition and contamination problem. Hence, to standardize the drying method with different type of dryers viz., sun, shade, polyethylene solar tunnel dryer, mixed mode compound parabolic solar dryer (CPSD) and solar biomass hybrid. The result revealed that polyethylene solar tunnel dryer records lowest drying time (6h) and highest drying rate (0.62 g/h). Compound parabolic solar dryer (CPSD) recorded highest value for phenol (16.96 mg/g), flavonoid (2.28 mg/g), protein (15.70 mg/g), Chlorophyll A (1.15 mg/g), chlorophyll B (0.562 mg/g) and total chlorophyll (1.712 mg/g). Bioactive compound of Gymnema i.e., gymnemagenin was (29.03µg/ml). Though, polyethylene tunnel dryer showed the lowest drying time but mixed mode CPSD captitulate the best quality standards.