Development of a Device to Pulping Fruits of Bocaiuva (Acrocomia aculeate sp.) for the Communities that Practice Sustainable Strativism

Abstract

Bocaiuva (Acrocomia aculeata) fruit pulp has high potential for food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications and in the biofuel industry. The main hindrance for these applications is the availability of pulp in sufficient quantity. The pulp of this fruit is usually supplied by rural communities where the processors use manual pulping, which is not only time-consuming but yields product of low quality. The objective of this work was to design, fabricate and evaluate the efficiency of an experimental bench device for pulping bocaiuva fruits. The bench device was designed to be compact and easy to operate, with intermittent operation and pulping performed by shearing. The performance evaluation of the machine was carried out with fruit dehydrated at 70°C and different times of dehydration (6, 12 and 24 hours). The pulp weight was evaluated every 15 seconds during the pulping process period (150 seconds). The highest pulping efficiency (96%) was obtained with fruits that were dehydrated for 24 hours, with a 120-second pulping, which resulted in a production rate of 5.5 kg h-1 This high efficiency makes this mechanized prototype effective for pulping bocaiuva fruits and, thus, it can replace manual pulping, especially in rural communities involved with the bocaiuva production chain.