Extraction Process

Background

Herbal medicine is a very complex pool of compounds. Obtaining the effective components and removing the impure and toxic ingredients is the core of the herbal medicine discovery process.However, to decide what ingredients are effective and which ones are ineffectual are time consume and are often very tricky. It is often happens that one ingredient is believed to be effective, and later is proved not the major one. It is used as marker and characterized just because it is easier isolated than others. It is not rare that highly purified ingredient has lower activity than the mix.

Each class of herb has its own character and makes herb process becomes a case dependent example. In addition, most of the traditional formulation consists of two or more herb drug to function synergistically for multiple target organs & systems.

The complexity of herb and formulation makes the process becomes not straightforward.

Traditional process

Traditional process method is a history proved, containing important information approach, and should be the first one to consider. These extracts are generally obtained in several ways including infusions (hot teas), decoctions (boiled teas), tinctures (alcohol and water extracts), and macerations (cold-soaking) from original medicinal materials, or in slice or powder form. In the above traditional preparation methods, herbs are combined before extraction to allow them have “communication” and “react” in the new “community” during the extraction process. Currently, there are several big obstacles that need to be overcome: (1) prepare easy carry, easy consume dose form; (2) find the active ingredient composition in the formulation; (3) provide stronger conviction data from the clinical trial.

Modern process

Many new techniques are employing in modern herb industry. Here are some examples:

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE): SFE is a technique in which supercritical fluid (SCF) is used under high pressure to separate active ingredient from raw material.The SCF is most times carbon dioxide, sometimes modified by co-solvents such as ethanol or methanol.

Ultrasonic-assisted extraction technology:The ultrasonic extraction is a new powerful processing technology that assisting breaks the cell and improves material transfer.

Microwave-assisted Extraction technology: Microwave can generates tremendous pressure on the cell wall and pushes the cell wall from inside and ultimately break it, which help the active constituents escape from cells and improving the yield of extracts.

Digestion method: Crude herb medicines contain starch, pectin, protein, etc. when they are considered as impurity, can be partly decomposed and removed through choose corresponding enzymes to increase the active component purity and yield.

Pressurized liquid extraction (PLE): PLE, also known as "Accelerated Solvent Extraction" (ASE), is a potential and powerful tool in industry extraction process. In this process the solvents are used near their supercritical region. In that physical region the high temperature enables high solubility and high diffusion rate of lipid solutes in the solvent, while the high pressure, in keeping the solvent below its boiling point, enables a high penetration of the solvent in the sample. Thus, PFE permits a high extraction efficiency with a low solvent volume and a short extraction time.

Ocean Horizon’s Extraction Technology

One of the biggest challenges for modern TCM researchers is extending the advantage of traditional preparations while at the same time overcoming its disadvantages. Under the guide of traditional Chinese medicine theory, combination the traditional and modern techniques is a fantastic choice to work out this problem.

Ocean Horizon extracts its herb formulations either concurrently or individually according the character of herbs.The crude extracts then undergoes a selected suitable modern purification technique, to make the active ingredients act as an integrated unit.

Cold EscapeTM is prepared using the “integrative unit” extract as its active ingredients.