METALLURGICAL AND SOLUBILITY STUDY OF ASHODHIT AND SHODHIT SROTONJANA

The mineral Srotonjana (antimony sulfide) is being used by Indians since ancient times. In Ayurvedic texts, it has been directed that Srotonjana should be used only after shodhana. Shodhana is a process to remove the unwanted physical, chemical impurities and toxic material and makes it suitable for medicinal use. Metallography is an advanced scientific study which is used in the study of the microstructure and identification of the parent metal particles along with the nature of compound formed during the shodhana. The difficulty of low solubility and less dissolution rate of metal and minerals has received broad academic and industrial awareness. So the aim of present study was to generate metallographic and solubility in the different solvent study as a tool (fingerprint) for ashodhita and shodhita Srotonjana for quality assessment and standardization. In the present study, Srotonjana was shodhit by seven bhavana (levigation) with bhringraj swaras and with triphala kwath. The finding results revealed that after shodhana Srotonjana broke into smaller particles and became homogeneous in both shodhit the samples but no change in their chemical composition. The shodhit samples of Srotonjana are soluble in the organic solvent which indicates the presence of organic material in Srotonjana.