Abstract
Depodding of moringa which is still being carried out manually by removing with hand or by hitting a bag containing the pods is time-consuming, labour intensive and not economical. The demand for quality oil-bearing moringa seeds that have a wide area of industrial applications necessitates innovative deppoding techniques that will improve its market value. To ameliorate these problems, moringa depoddding machine has been developed but studies on performance evaluation and optimal parameter setting are sparsely reported. This study therefore, evaluated the effects of the processing factors (moisture content (MC) and speed of rotation (SR)) levels on the performance (throughput capacity (TP), effective throughput capacity (ETP), labour requirement (LR), depodding coefficient (DC), coefficient of wholeness (CW), depodding efficiency (DE), depodded kernel (DK), undepodded kernel (UK), small broken kernel (SBK), and big broken kernel (BBK)) of the designed and fabricated moringa depodding machine using the response surface methodology and test between subjects-effects. The experimental design used was a two factor, three levels i-optimal randomized design. Mathematical models relating the process factors to performance were developed. The predicted optimum results obtained were validated using the observed values of the experiment. MC and SR were found to have a significant effect on the performance of the machine. The predicted optimum performance of the machine were 113.73 kg/hr, 109.45 kg/hr, 0.85 man-hour required/Kg, 96.15 %, 0.96, 93.93 %, 0.98, 0.02, 10.64 %, and 1.24 % for TP, ETP, LR, DC, CW, DE, DK, UK, SBK, and BBK respectively at MC and SR of 10.10 % wet basis and 564 rpm. The experimental values at these processing conditions were close to the predicted optimum results obtained with little deviations which were statistically insignificant. The selected models sufficiently predicted the performance of the developed machine.
Highlights
Moringa oleifera plant is rich in protein and bioactive compounds like essential oils, saponins, and tannins with several industrial uses [1, 2, 3]
Increased moisture content reduces the throughput capacity (TP), thereby increasing the labour requirement (LR). These observations are in agreement with Falade and Aremu [2], a decreased TP with increased moisture content at 90o bar inclination but fluctuate using other bar inclination for an impact type moringa shelling device
The response surface analysis revealed that the speed of rotation and crop moisture content had a significant effect on the various performance efficiencies (TP, effective throughput capacity (ETP), LR, DC, coefficient of wholeness (CW), depodding efficiency (DE), UK, small broken kernel (SBK), and big broken kernel (BBK))
Summary
Moringa oleifera plant is rich in protein and bioactive compounds like essential oils, saponins, and tannins with several industrial uses [1, 2, 3]. Depoddingof moringa fruit is the first basic unit operation that must be carried out before other post-harvest processes such as dehulling/shelling, cleaning, and oil expelling depending on its end-use. The depodding process of moringa is still being carried out manually, by hitting a bag containing moringa pods with a wooden stick or removing them by hand. This manual method is time-consuming, causes high mechanical damage to the product, with a lot of drudgeries attached to its process. Falade and Aremu [3] stated that manual processing of moringa seed is expensive, thereby damping its economic viability
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