Saturday, August 24, 2013

guar Gum Manufacturing Process

Depending upon the requirement of the end product, various techniques are used for processing guar. In India, commercial production of guar gum is normally undertaken by using the process of  roasting, differential attrition, sieving and polishing. The stage-wise process of manufacturing food grade guar gum is as follows: Selected guar split is screened to clean and then soaked to prehydrate in a double cone mixer. Prehydrating stage is very important in the process as it derives the rate of hydration of the final  product.  Soaked splits, which have reasonably high moisture content, are passed through a flaker. The flaked guar split is ground to the desired particle size, followed by drying of the material. The powder is then screened through rotary screens to deliver required particle size. Oversized material is either recycled or reground, as per viscosity requirement. The soaked splits are difficult to grind. Direct grinding of such splits generates more heat in the grinder, an undesirable process, as it results in insoluble or reduced hydration in the end product. Using heating, grinding and polishing process, the husk is separated from the endosperm halves and the refined guar gum split is obtained. Through grinding process, the refined guar split is then
treated and converted into powder. During the split manufacturing process, husk and germ are obtained and these are widely used as cattle feed, as they are rich in protein. It is widely sold in the international market as guar meal and contains oil and lbuminoids, about 50 per cent in germ and about 25 per cent in husks. Quality of food grade guar gum powder is defined from its particle size, rate of hydration and the microbial it contains

Guar Seed: The pods are sun dried, manually separated from the seeds and the seeds are supplied to the industry for processing. Guar by-products, churi and korma, are used as cattle feed.

Undehusked Guar Splits: A mechanical process of roasting, differential attrition, sieving and polishing, commercially extracts the gum from the seeds. The seeds are broken and the germ is separated from the endosperm. Two halves of the endosperm are obtained from each seed and are known as undehusked guar splits.
RefinedGuar Splits: When the fine layer of fibrous material, which forms the husk, is removed and separated from the endosperm halves by polishing, refined guar splits are obtained.

Guar Powder: The refined guar splits are then treated and grounded into powders by a variety of routes and processing techniques, depending upon the end product desired.

Guar Meal: A by-product of guar processing, guar meal (mixture of husks and germ) is rich a source of protein. It is used for cattle as well as poultry feed. Toasting of guar meal improves its nutritive value. It can be used up to 10 per cent in poultry diet and can replace up to 100 per cent protein supplements, such as groundnut cake, in cattle feed. 

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The Demand Side of the Market.

The Demand Side of the Market.

When discussing demand, economists like to distinguish between the effects of price changes taken in isolation and the effects of structural changes that shift the relationship between price and demand over time movements along demand curves and shifts in demand curves, if you remember that lecture from your Econ 101 course. The effects of price changes on the quantity demanded are measured by elasticity of demand the percentage change in the quantity of a good demanded as the result of a 1 percent change in its price.
Guar is a good with no important final uses. As an input for industrial uses, is elasticity of demand depends on its share in total production costs, the availability of substitutes, and the elasticity of demand for the final products it goes into oil, gas, and food products.
Together, those factors keep the elasticity of demand low. With regard to its use in energy production, demand for oil and gas is itself inelastic and there appear to be no good substitutes for guar in fracking fluid. Those considerations offset the fact that the share of guar in production costs, as noted above, is substantial. Demand for food products that use guar is more elastic than for oil and gas, and substitutes are available in some cases. For example, the U.S. company TIC Gums offers a product called Ticaloid GR4520 that it claims performs as well as guar gum for industrial baked goods, although at a somewhat higher cost. However that consideration is offset by the fact that guar accounts for only a small share of the cost common foods.
When elasticity of demand is low, short-run changes in market conditions can lead to large fluctuations in price, as happened in the guar market earlier this year.  Also, there were some problems in the futures market that led Indian regulators to suspend trading in March. Reports in the Indian business press suggested attempts to manipulate prices and corner the market. Those transitory influences have now passed, hence the recent decrease in prices.
In the long run, demand responds to trends that operate independently of prices. Over time, population growth and rising incomes throughout the world are likely to increase demand for both food and energy. For food, rising income typically brings substitution of industrial foodstuffs, including those that use guar gum, for home-cooked foods, that do not. At the same time, oil and gas produced by fracking seem certain to increase as a share of all energy. Fracking is as yet widely used only in the United States, but many other regions have oil and gas deposits that could potentially be tapped using the technology.

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