Drying Technology
Damascus rose,known as the "flower queen of the rose kingdom", is the main rose variety grown in Bulgaria, and is also recognized as a high-quality rose class in the world. The leaves are grayish green with stiff hairs on the flower stems; the double-petaled flowers have slightly lighter edges and satin-like texture. The dried petals are of great value and are widely used for extracting rose essential oil;the cellfluid with obvious plant active ingredients is also the best raw material in the beauty industry.
The modern rose industrial plantation in Guanxian, Liaocheng, where Damascus roses are planted, with an area of about 3,000 acres, is located in Zhaodangpu Village, Dianzi Town. Thanks to the innate climate and geographical location, the quality of the roses grown excellent and high nutritional value. The picking period is entered at the end of April every year, and the yield per acre can reach more than 400 kg.
The fresh flowers after picking were sent by local flower farmers to the dehumidification heat pump drying room of the modern rose processing base invested by Shincci for dehydration and drying as well as cell liquid recovery. The whole processing process realizes the closed-loop operation of the entire industrial chain from planting, acquisition, raw processing, and sales, which hugely improves the added value of the products and greatly stimulates the local people's enthusiasm for developing characteristic agricultural planting and getting rich.
Every petal is the return for diligence.
With fishbelly white color sunrise and dawn shimmer, the lovely fragrance is blooming in the silent early morning. Away from the dense fog, it was discovered that the hardworking people had already worked at the base. The Damascus rose began to bloom at two o’clock in the morning. In order not to miss the golden picking period of just a few hours, the growers must get up early to start picking.
Early in the morning, a few miles away, the processing base is full of voices and hurriedly walking. The flower farmers drove three-wheeled motorcycles and the van to the spoils of hard work to all night. The fragrant fresh flowers are packed in woven bags or plastic baskets. After hundreds of days of careful cultivation, they finally wait till this moment of harvest.
The base purchased flowers based on the guaranteed price of 10 CNY / kg, which effectively solved the market problem for local people. After receiving a stack of hundred-dollar bills, the growers were filled with the joy of harvest. The staffs were busy with weighing and inspecting the flowers, and then spread them in the shade to hang and cool. The wide workshop immediately became a sea of roses. They are about to meet the next beautiful transformation.
Every process is the tribute to hard work.
The drying area of the Rose Processing Factory in Guanxian invested by Shincci covers an area of about 720 square meters. The dehumidification heat pump drying room is composed of three warehouses connected in series. The first two warehouses are equipped with two modules of 48P three-effect integrated drying mainframe, the third warehouse is equipped with one module of a 48P triple-effect drying mainframe. The entire tandem drying room is a polyurethane insulation and drying room with a size of 25.6 meters long, 9.8 meters wide and 4.7 meters high and 10 centimeters thick. The drying capacity can be up to 40.000 pounds of fresh flowers per day. It takes 12-14 hours to dry a lot and the temperature is about 50 ℃, and the drying rate is 6: 1. The dehumidification heat pump drying room adopts the closed drying mode throughout the process, which is not affected by the weather or the season.
Rose feeding and start-up: After the conveyor belt filled with flowers is transferred from the cache hopper to the entrance of the dehumidification heat pump drying room through the hoist, the staff closes the door of the drying room, starts the drying program, and the dehumidification heat pump unit will automatically circulate the air and begin to dry the flowers evenly.
Rose drying process: After the flowers enter the dehumidification heat pump drying room, they are sequentially placed on the spiral tower conveyor in an orderly manner, with a thickness of about 8 cm. The three tandem drying rooms are each equipped with a spiral tower connected to each other. According to the continuous conveying mode from "top to bottom, bottom to top, and then top to bottom", the circulating hot air of the dehumidification heat pump drying host, dehydrated and dried the flowers spread on conveyor. In the process of dehumidification, the temperature is generally not too high, because the performance of the floral materials is relatively fragile, if the temperature is too high, it will change the color, such as yellowing, blackening, etc., and it may even cause the petals and leaves crack.
Drying is divided into three stages, that is to say, each drying room is used as a single stage. The temperature increases from 48 degrees to 58 degrees in sequence, the dehumidification continues without stopping, and the drying time is 12-14 hours. After completion, the dried flowers are artificially detected as the following standard: the color is bright and has the unique aroma of roses; the flowers are full and slightly open; the color is fuchsia or sauce fuchsia; the receptacle and calyx are yellow-green; the petals are twisted by hand to form a powder flake; when 70-80% of the torus is twisted by hand and shows a shredded filament, it means that it is dry. Meanwhile, the dried flowers are exported from the drying room by the mesh belt conveyor.
Screening and separation of dry materials with packaging and storage: The dry materials after leaving the warehouse are introduced into the vibration separation equipment through the elevator, and the materials such as petals, receptacles, calyx and waste impurities are screened and separated under mechanical force.
In order to further peel off the petals, pedicles, calyx and torus to ensure the quality of the dried flowers, the large petals on the left outlet will be sent to the color sorter by the climbing elevator for multiple color sorting.After all the processes are completed, the dried flowers finally enter the finished product silo, air dry to room temperature, lightly put into the packaging bag and sealed, then stored in a refrigerated warehouse that meets food hygiene standards.
As the purified water, essential oils carry the soul of plants and can play a role in psychological emotion and energy level. The essential oil has the complete imprint of the plant and contains its implication message. The dried petals are its precious raw plant material.
According to statistics, after the flowers of 3000 acres of rose planting area were processed by low-temperature evaporation of dehumidification heat pump drying equipment, all the more than 200 tons of produced dried flowers were sent to Shincci laboratory of Low Temperature Evaporation Agricultural Research Institute in Jiujiang, jiangxi. In order for the refinement of essential oil there , which is used to make high-end luxury skin care products. After research, it was found that the content of effective active ingredients extracted by supercritical liquid oxygen process is 2-3 times that of ordinary raw liquid extraction technology.
In the cell liquid recovery unit, Shincci matched the corresponding condensate temporary storage tanks for the three reservoirs separately. In order to maintain the active ingredients of roses to a maximum extent, after the evaporated mother liquid is introduced into the filtering device through the water pump, it is quickly injected into the storage tank and transferred to the cold storage for freshness.
At present, the cell fluid produced by the processing base is expected to exceed 1.000 tons per year. According to the market price of more than 40.000 CNY per ton, it will be sold to chemical companies in batches as the raw materials for beauty and skin care products, so the economic benefit is considerable. According to a preliminary estimate, the entire processing base can achieve an annual output value of more than 100 million CNY.
“Next, we can also use the demonstration and leading role of the rose planting and processing industry to replicate and promote this industry nationwide, and guide farmers to participate extensively in this industry. At the same time, we start with excellent breed selection, scientific management, marketing and other links to provide farmers with whole process support, integrate poverty alleviation objects into the industrial chain, and thus drive them out of poverty to get rich, and out of an industrial transformation New way.” Tan Jixiang, head of Shincci Energy Market Department, said.
