V. STORAGE OF MEDICINAL PLANTS OR CRUDE
DRUGS
Dry extracts are usually very hygroscopic and should therefore be ground, mixed
under conditions, which exclude moisture as much as possible. Intermediate and end products
must also be stored under dry conditions. Annealing or sealing of the products in suitable
moisture tight synthetic foils has proved a good method for this.
Requirement of packaging materials
The general requirements of packaging materials are the following (Kraisintu, 1997)
- Economical or low cost
- Impermeable as glass or metal or of acceptable permeability to moisture, gases, volatile
solvents etc. - Non reactive-relatively inert with no extraction, exchange or interaction
- Easy to manufacture in a wide range of shapes, preferably by a number of manufacturing
processes. - Easy to decorate and /or print by a range of processes
- Good production line efficiency-performance, with the minimum of rejects or wastage.
- Effective as a pack(container and closure), i.e., easy to open and reclose and use
if multidose; or open if single dose, whilst meeting any special requirements such as
child resistance, tamper evidence or resistance, etc. - Easy to produce and maintain clean
- Preferably readily available both in terms of source of supply for raw materials and as a
converted item component from several suppliers. - Environmentally friendly
- Able to optimise use of space when stacked or during transportation.
Types of Packing Materials
The common types of packaging materials currently available are given below
(Kraisintu, 1997)
- Glass: It can be found as several variants such as treated soda glass, soda glass and non
parenteral. - Metals: A variety of metals including tin plate(tin coated mild steel) tin free steel,
aluminium, aluminium alloys are widely used in packaging, being found as rigid
containers, collapsible containers, aluminium foils, metalised coatings etc. - Plastics: There are five economical materials for rigid type of containers i.e., those based
on polyethylene (PE), polypropylene(PP), Polystyrene(PS), PVC and polyester. - Elastomeric materials: Elastomers can be found as a wide range of basic materials (i.e.,
natural rubber, synthetic polyisoprene, neoprene, nitryl, butyl, including bromo-and chloro
butyl, ethylene propylene diene modified (EPDM), acid silicone elastomers.)