Complete Production Process of Guar Gum Powder
Guar is also known as guaran or cluster beans and is the source of Guar Gum Powder. This is mainly grown in India and Pakistan. Many new applications of Guar have come to light recently. Guar-Gum is one of the most important product from Guar which can hydrate rapidly in cold water and also attain high viscosity even in low concentration.
This article goes on to describe Guar Gum powder and its manufacturing process. It also lists its numerous applications.
What is Guar Gum powder?
Guar is an important industrial raw material and India is the largest producer and exporter of it. Crude Guar Gum is a grayish white powder that dissolves in water to a large extent. Average composition is 23% hydrocolloid, 40% fats, 34% protein.
Main properties of Guar-Gum Powder:
- Thickening property of this powder is very good and it is also gluten free.
- Prevents growth of ice crystals.
- Guar Gum can withstand high temperature.
- It is more soluble, thus helps with various applications.
- Can attain high viscosity at relatively low concentration.
- It is a friction loss reducing agent.
Here are the important steps to produce Guar-Gum Powder:
- To start with the guar pods are dried in sunlight.
- They are then manually separated from seeds.
- Churi and Korma is a by product that is famous for its application as cattle feed.
- These seeds are then further processed in an industry to extract Gum.
- The mechanical process to extract gum includes roasting, differential attrition, serving, polishing.
- Once seed extraction is complete, it is broken and germ is separated from the endosperm.
- The halves of endosperm from each seed is otherwise known as husked Guar Splits.
- The husk which is a fine fibrous material undergoes polishing after removal from the endosperm, this is the refined Guar Splits
- This undergoes further treatment for conversion into powder. There are several types of processing techniques that can be implemented for this purpose.
Guar powder has many applications in several industries. It is considered to be perfect for textile industry. Here is a list of several applications:
- It reduces wrap breakage and is highly efficient.
- It absorbs water very fast, thus prevents ink from spreading all over the clothes, making it useful in textile industry.
- It is a thickening agent, hence can be useful for dyes, polyester, cotton, silk, nylon, and more.
- Prevention of chemical corrosion helps enhances quality of printing.
- Printing industry considers it optimal for use since it has good erosive, bonding, hardness and writing properties.
- This has a good sheet formation, folding and denser surface for printing, thus good for paper industry.
- This is a waterproofing agent when it is mixed with ammonium nitrate, nitroglycerin making it optimal for the explosive industry.
- There are several applications in the pharmaceutical industry, as a binder, dis-integrator, etc.
- Popular as a thicker in toothpaste, conditioner in shampoos; hence useful in the Cosmetic & toiletries industry.
- Mining industry and Hydraulic fracturing Shale oil and gas extraction industries.
- Medical and Nanoparticles industry.
- As a thicker in Phos-chek for the Fire retardant industry.
- It is useful for application in baked goods since it increases the dough, improves resiliency, texture and shelf life.
- It helps improve the thickness of flours thus allowing them to rise like any other flour.
- It is popular in noodles since it helps in better sheet formation and also improves moisture retention, texture and machine runnability.
- It is useful in pet food as a viscosifier.
