RESUMEN
AIM: To establish a new kinetic model of hydrating swelling and to make experiments of Radix et Rhizoma Rhei (Rhubarb) designed to validate this model. METHODS: The model was set up according to kinetics, residul water analysis was adopted to measure Rhubarb's sakage, and then obtained the fittin curve and kinetic parameters, its goodness of fit was evaluated by analysis of variance. RESULTS: Hydrating swelling model of the vegetable herb had a form of multivariate first order linear differential equation. Rhubarb comformed to three compartment model with ? = 0.3241min -1 , ? = 0.0185min -1 , ?=5.659?10 -3 min -1 , V ∞ T =1.726mL?g -1 , V ∞ 1 =1.008mL?g -1 , V ∞ 2 =0.2814mL?g -1 V ∞ 3 =0.4366mL?g -1 ,K= 0.2186min -1 ,K 12 =0.02426min -1 ,K 21 =0.07422min -1 ,K 13 =6.402?10 -3 min -3 ,K 31 =0.02481min -1 . CONCLUSION: The kinetic model of hydrating swelling has been in accordance with quantitative changes with multivariate first order linear mammary.