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US 6,270,773 B1Granted
Process for stabilizing vegetable plants
AssigneeGattefosse SAS
InventorsAimée Gaillard Pourrat, Henri Pourrat
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process for preserving desired characteristics of vegetable plants for cosmetic, condimental, aromatic or food use is described which includes rehydrating harvested vegetable to nearly the water content of freshly harvested plants and then exposing them to microwave radiation to rapidly heat them to the denaturation temperature of the specific enzyme contained in the harvested plants.
Claims5
A process for stabilizing plants containing enzymes and therapeutic active ingredients that includes the steps of
- providing harvested plants of one variety containing not less than two-thirds of the plants' original water content at the time of harvest, said plants further containing enzymes having a lower denaturation temperature than that of the therapeutic active ingredient,
- determining the denaturation temperature of said enzymes,
- rehydrating the harvested plants at ambient temperature to restore the plants' water content to about 95% of that at the time of harvest,
- exposing the rehydrated plants to ultra high frequency radiation,
- monitoring the temperature of said plants during the radiation step,
- immediately terminating the radiation exposure when said predetermined denaturation temperature of said enzymes has been reached, and
- recovering at least 90% of the therapeutic active ingredients contained in the plants at the time of harvest.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.