India is the main exporter of guargum in the world. It exports various forms of guar products to most countries in the world, such as wholesale guar gum . The main export destinations for 2016-2017 are the USA, Norway, China, Russia and Germany.
India is a native of the guar or cluster component, where it is used as a vegetable. Guar gum comes from the seed endosperm of the legume plant Cyamopsis tetragonoloba, an annual plant grown in dry regions of India as a food crop.
Guar seeds are processed, crushed and sieved to produce guar gum. It is usually obtained as a free-flowing, pale, off-white, coarse fine-grained powder. Guar gum (Galactomannan) is a high molecular weight carbohydrate polymer composed of a large number of mannose and galactose units joined together. Coarse guar gum is a grayish-white powder, 90% of which is soluble in water. It is a non-ionic polysaccharide based on crushed guar endosperm (cyamposis tetragonalobus legume seeds). Guar gum is produced from endosperm and consists mainly of gummed poly-monogalactose groups with small amounts of fiber and minerals.
Several methods have been used to make the various grades of guar gum, but due to its complex nature, the thermomechanical process is commonly used to produce food grade and industrial grade guar gum.
About 90 percent of the guar gum processed in India is exported. There are various grades of guar gums, pure or derived. Their ability to suspend solids, bind water by hydrogen bonding, control the viscosity of aqueous solutions, form strong rigid films, explains the rapid growth in demand and use in various industries. It is used in the food, cosmetics, paper and textile industries. But most of the demand comes from the expansion of shale gas and the oil industry.
