A Comparative Technique for Performance Evaluation of Hammer Mill and Disk Mill in Yam Flour Processing

Abstract

Grinding (Particle size reduction) of biomass is an age-long operation that is performed during the preparation process of certain food products. Among the grinding mill machines mostly used for this operation are hammer mill and disk mill. Being that the nature of biomass affects the performance and choice of grinding-mill machine to be adopted, it is imperative to compare and select appropriate grinding mill machine that is efficient and effective. In this paper, a comparative technique to evaluate and select appropriate grinding mill machine for particle size reduction of dried white yam (Dioscorea rotundata) is proposed. Hammer mill and disk mill machines were selected for consideration. Two white yam species (Benue and Delta Yam) were prepared into dried chips and ground using the selected mills. Among the attribute (performance parameters) considered are crushing time, particle size distribution and energy consumed. A measure of performance (Index I) based on the comparative technique was formulated and used in evaluating the performance of the two mills. In the hammer mill, index I recorded 2721.2 and 3719.82 par/kWh for Benue Yam chips at screen size 4 and 6 mm, respectively, while 2647.89 and 3472.01 par/kWh was recorded for Delta yam chips at screen size 4 and 6 mm, respectively. Index I values for the Disk mill were 2536.25 and 2433.42 par/kWh at 1.2 mm clearance distance for Benue Yam chips and Delta Yam chips, respectively. The results indicated that hammer mill performed better overall than the disk mill. The comparative technique was found suitable in the evaluation of the performance of the mills. It is recommended that hammer mill be adopted.