Production of Briquetted Tablets from Some Medicinal and Aromatic Crops انتاج اقراص مقولبه من بعض المحاصيل الطبية والعطرية

Experiments were carried out for briquetting some medicinal and aromatic crops in a form of tablets instead of traditional methods. Some research has shown the risk of paper bags that contain chemicals and plastic fibers, which leads to harmful impact on human health. Dried chamomile disc flowers, chamomile ray flowers petals, and local mint leaves were indentified without any strange binder. A specified percentage of moisture content was added to the materials in a homogenizer to use the natural plants colloidal material to briquette the particles. Pre-determined amount of water was added to approach moisture content levels from 40% to 55% by increment of 5%db under compression force of 450, 500, 550, and600N. Three indicators were measured to evaluate the briquetted tablets quality included penetration resistance (N), final briquettes mass (g), and durability (%).The best quality for chamomile disc flower briquettes, chamomile ray flowers petals, mint leaves were found under (compression force 550N, and moisture content of 50 %db, 50%db, 45%db respectively), whereas, bulk density was 0.6g/cm3, 0.7g/cm3, 0.6g/cm3 respectively. Meanwhile ,briquette tablet mass, penetration resistance, and durability without backing were (1.5g, 98N, and52%) respectively for chamomile disc flowers, (1.5g, 114N ,and 60%) respectively for chamomile ray flowers petals and (1.62g, 100N, and52% ) respectively for mint leaves . In general, the examined method has succeeded to briquetting some medicinal and aromatic crops in the form of tablets as a final product by cold press without adding binder.