Abstract: To improve the water-solubility, In vivo stability and bioavailability of Panax notoginsenosides(PNS), superfine PNS powder was carried on by the spray-drying process. In this paper, the optimal conditions for preparing superfine PNS powder by spray-drying process were obtained by using orthogonal experimental analysis and each index for superfine PNS powder was detected. After the orthogonal experimental analysis, the optimal preparation conditions were obtained as follows: Inlet temperature 140℃, concentration of PNS 65 g·L^-1, feeding flow 30 L·h^-1 and air pulse 4. The physicochemical properities of PNS original powder were examined. SEM result demonstrated that the morphology of the superfine PNS powder appears regular, the particle size is 70.5 nm as measured by laser particle size analyzer. The infrared spectrum examination result confirmed that the chemical property of the superfine PNS powder is similar to original powder. DSC and X-Ray examinations showed that the crsytal structure of the superfine PNS powder is different from PNS original powder, indicating the increase of water-solubility.

Key words: PNS, water-solubility, superfine powder, spray-drying, optimization, characterization