What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to determine the best drying and packaging strategies for preserving the nutrients and bioactivity in Bauhinia purpurea petals.

April 20, 2026Scientific Reports0 citationsOpen Access

Optimization of drying and packaging strategies for preserving phytochemicals, nutrients, and bioactivity in Bauhinia purpurea petals

PRParthi Ba RanaNavsari Agricultural University HSHardik ShahNavsari Agricultural University CKChintan Kapadia

Key Points

The aim is to determine the best drying and packaging strategies for preserving the nutrients and bioactivity in Bauhinia purpurea petals.
Employed drying techniques: solar drying, oven drying, freeze drying
Packaged dried petals in glass bottles, plastic bags, aluminum foil bags, and plastic bottles
Analyzed phytochemical content and antimicrobial activity of different extracts
Solar-dried petals showed higher concentrations of proteins, carbohydrates, antioxidants, and flavonoids
Ethanolic extract displayed greater antimicrobial activity compared to other extracts
Storage negatively impacted most metabolites, but solar-dried samples retained maximum benefits after three months

Abstract

Bauhinia purpurea L. is regarded as a superior plant because of the phytochemical components found in its bark, seed, leaves, and flowers. As a winter-flowering tree, B. purpurea requires the petals to be stored with intact phytochemicals in order to be available all year round. Various drying techniques were employed, such as solar drying, oven drying, and freeze drying. The dried petals was then packaged in glass bottles, plastic bags, aluminium foil bags, and plastic bottles. Fresh petals have higher concentrations of Mn, Zn), and Cu compared to N, P, K, and Mg. The oil obtained from fresh petals contained the highest concentrations of methyl cis-8,11,14-eicosatrienoate, methyl palmitoleate, and methyl arachidate, The lowest percentage peak area is seen for methyl heneicosanoate, methyl linoleate, and methyl myristoleate, which have relative peak areas of 0.91, 1.44, and 1.52%, respectively. The ethanolic extract of B. purpurea petals demonstrated greater antimicrobial activity at 20 mg concentration against S. typhi, Proteus sp., Enterobacter sp., Pseudomonas sp., and Klebsiella sp. than hexane and acetonitrile extracts. The solar-dried had greater concentrations of protein, carbohydrates, reducing sugar, carotenoid, phenol, flavonoids, antioxidants, oxalate, and tannic acid. Alkaloids and phytic acid, which are regarded as anti-nutritional, have been demonstrated to have lower values when oven-dried at 50 °C and freeze-dried at 50 °C, respectively. While the phenol, flavonoid, and carotenoid contents appeared to be higher in all dried samples, the anthocyanin concentration decreased dramatically (p < 0.05) in all dry samples. After analysing the stored sample for three months, it was found that most of the parameters showed a negative connection with the increased months of storage. However, solar dry sample with three months of storage showed to preserve maximum metabolite compare to all other methods. Aluminum bag packaging retained maximum content of anthocyanin, carotenoid and antioxidants.

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