Guar gum powder is produced from guar beans. The guar powder has thickening and preserving qualities which are proved beneficial when used in edible items and also for different industrial applications. The powder is a free-flowing & off-white color. Guar gum is soluble due to the presence of extra galactose branch points. The guar gum powder does not get influenced by ionic energy or pH, and it also remains stable in solution. The thickness accomplished by converting the guar seeds into guar gum powder is dependent on time, temperature, concentration, and particle size of the gum powder, which is being used. As the process of guar powders isn’t a quick procedure, below-mentioned is the detailed information from producing guar seeds in farms to final processing of seeds into guar powder in industries.
Farm Processing of Guar Gum
In today’s times, the production of guar gum has adopted high-tech solutions to ease the farming process. Let’s have a look at what functions are performed during the farm processing of these demanded products.
- Plantation Technique
At first Guar seeds are planted in rows with the help of a crop planter. In the planting of seeds, depth plantation is usually recommended so that if the seed is somehow crushed, gummed, or clogged the depth planting will prevent clogging. For this purpose graphite or dry detergent is added to the seedbox so that it reduces seed weight.
- Extraction Process
In the extraction process, filtration of Guar plants is processed, and the guar seeds are obtained after separating the husk and germ from the plant and grinding the endosperm of the crop into fine powder particles. The high technology types of equipment like Pneumatic conveying system and storage silo are used in the farm processing of the Guar material.
Industrial Processing of Guar Beans Into Guar Gum Powder
In the industrial production of Guar gum powder, different processes like roasting, differential attrition, and polishing are applied. As the Guar extracts are the raw material of Guar powder, first it is converted into food-grade Guar material by passing through different stages. The first stage of producing Guar gum powder in industries is the split selection. In the split selection process, the Guar extracts are screened in order to be cleaned and soaked before hydrating it in a double-cone mixer. The prehydrating stage is a mandatory process because it determines the percentage of hydration required for the final product. Once the hydration process is completed, the soaked extracts with high moisture content are passed through a flaker. The role of the flaker is to split and dry the Guar extracts. The rotary screens play a major role in converting Guar extracts into Guar gum powder, as the oversize particles are either recycled or re-grounded in a separate regrinding plant. This flaker-process helps in reducing the load of the grinder so that the soaked splits are easily ground. And once the Guar gum split is passed through the heating, grinding, and polishing method, the shell is isolated from the endosperm shares, and the pure guar split is received and by further grinding the Guar extracts, the final output is achieved in the form of Guar gum powder.
Hence, the above mentioned is the detailed process of how the Guar gum powder is manufactured in the industry and the processing journey of Guar gum from the farms to manufacturing industries.