DEVELOPMENT, TESTING AND OPTIMIZATION INDICES OF DRY STATE DEHULLER FOR BREADFRUIT SEEDS
Keywords:
African breadfruit, dehuller, development and testing, optimizationAbstract
Dehulling is a process that combines cracking and expression to free hulls from seed kernels. In dehulling of breadfruit seeds cracking and expression take place as independent drudgery and low productive operations, especially in wet dehulling. This study was aimed at the development and testing of a dehuller envisaged to satisfy the processing need for dry breadfruit seed dehulling to meet market demands. The design concept involved the use of rotating vanned horizontal output shaft to generate centrifugal force, impact and frictions to crack, express and classify kernels and hulls in one single operation. The developed machine has 1 kg holding capacity-hopper, 5 kg holding capacity-cylindrical dehulling chamber housing the rotating vanned horizontal output shaft driven by a rubber pulling system connected to -3.5 kw electric motor. The kernel and hulls are discharged efficiency and separately at outlet ports. The dehulling capacity, dehulling efficiency and separation efficiency were 20 kg/hr, 54 %, 49 % respectively. The post optimization values for dehulling and separation efficiencies were 48.70 % and 44.66 % respectively with the prospect for components scale up ratio of 1:1. The machine is a novel development as a dry seed dehuller which instead of blower uses internal material flow and air current to classify hulls and kernels. This dehuller valued at $750 is equally holds good promise for quick return of investiment and global trade on breadfruit seeds.
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