Analysis of Possible Noise Reduction Arrangements inside Olive Oil Mills: A Case Study

Simone Pascuzzi,Francesco Santoro

doi:10.3390/agriculture7100088

Simone Pascuzzi, Francesco Santoro

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture7100088

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Abstract

Apulia (Southern Italy) is the leading Italian region for the production of olive oil (115 × 106 kg of oil/year), and the olive oil chain is really important from a business point of view. Currently, the extraction of olive oil is essentially performed by using a mechanical pressing process (traditional olive oil mills), or by the centrifugation process (modern olive oil mills). The aim of this paper is to evaluate in detail the noise levels within a typical olive oil mill located in the northern part of the Apulia region during olive oil extraction. The feasibility of this study focusing on the assessment of workers’ exposure to noise was tested in compliance with the Italian-European Regulations and US standards and criteria. Several measurements of the noise emission produced by each machine belonging to the productive cycle were carried out during olive oil production. The results obtained were then used to evaluate possible improvements to carry out in order to achieve better working conditions. An effective reduction in noise could probably be achieved through a combination of different solutions, which obviously have to be assessed not only from a technical point of view but also an economic one. A significant reduction in noise levels could be achieved by increasing the area of the room allotted to the olive oil extraction cycle by removing all the unnecessary partition walls that might be present.

Highlights

The remarkable development in agricultural mechanization in recent years has assured a significant increase in productivity
The noise levels inside a typical olive oil mill located in Southern Italy were analyzed during the operations for processing olives into olive oil
The obtained results reveal a high level of noisiness inside the working environment, and the sound measured values were very close to the corresponding threshold values covered by both the Italian-European Regulations and the US. Whereas they were well over the limits recommended by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

Summary

Introduction

The remarkable development in agricultural mechanization in recent years has assured a significant increase in productivity. The extraction of olive oil is essentially currently performed by a mechanical pressing process inside traditional olive oil mills, which operate using a discontinuous working cycle, or by the centrifugation process inside modern mills with the use of a continuous cycle of extraction [15,16] (Figure 1). Both these methods require that the olives, washed and with the leaves removed, are previously crushed and reduced to a paste known as “oily juice”, from which it is easier to extract the olive oil. Insidestone traditional olive crusher) oil mills,crush stone (roller obtainedcrush paste the is spread synthetic fiber disks, as pulp mats, which stacked and as brought crusher) oliveson and the obtained pasteknown is spread on synthetic fiberare disks, known pulp to the which mechanical press in and orderbrought to separate themechanical vegetation water olive oil the pomace

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