The Comparative Analysis of a Developed Swing Beater and Conventional Beater of a Palm Nut Cracking Machine

Abstract

Based on high dependent of many processing company on palm kernel oil, high quality palm nut cracking machine is not only necessary but also important to revitalize the production of palm kernel in other to meup with ever increasing industrial demand. Different palm kernel beaters; Swing beater (SB) and the conventional type known as rigid beater (RB) of an existing palm kernel cracker were investigated using the moisture content (7, 17, 26% (db)), five different speeds (970, 1200, 1450,1750, 2430rpm) and three different average nut sizes (14.5, 22.15, 29.43mm) of palm kernel nut. Approximately, six thousand palm nuts of Tenera specie were collected, dried, cleaned and sorted to evaluate the machine. Result shows that, the maximum quality efficiency recorded for Swing beater was 89.5% at 17% moisture content (db), 29.4 mm average nut size and 970 rpm machine speed. Similarly, for the performance of rigid beater, the maximum quality efficiency of 71.5% was recorded at 26% moisture content (db), 29.4 mm average nut size and 970 rpm machine speed. The effect of nut size was however not significant on the quality efficiency however it was generally observed that quality efficiency increased with increase in the nuts size. The machine speed has a significant effect on the quality efficiency. Generally, the quality of the kernel recovered decreased as the machine speed decreased. Beater configuration has significant effect on the quality efficiency of the palm nut cracking machine at 5% significant level. Swing beater can be used instead of conventional beater (rigid beater) to crack palm nut for higher quality of whole kernel recovery.