Department of Food and Agricultural Engineering

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Browsing Department of Food and Agricultural Engineering by Author "Adeoye I. Oyebanji"

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    DEVELOPMENT AND PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF JATROPHA CURCAS FRUIT DECORTICATOR.
    (Nigerian Instituttion of Agricultural Engineers (NIAE), 2020) Tajudeen A. Ishola; Rasheed A. Busari; Murtala O. Iyanda; Adeoye I. Oyebanji
    The local ways of decorticating Jatropha Curcas fruits using mortar and pestle or by cracking with hand is time consuming, unhygienic, labour intensive and grossly inadequate to meet the present demand of Jatropha seeds processing and other value-added products in the country as the oil from the seeds can serve as alternative fuel for diesel engines. To overcome these challenges, variables that influence this very important decorticating process require proper attention. A Jatropha Curcas fruit decorticator was designed, and it consists of feed hopper, threshing unit, frame, bearings, and shell outlets. The design of the machine was based on the selected engineering properties of Jatropha fruits and all materials used for the construction were sourced locally. The machine was evaluated for its performance and data obtained from the test were analyzed statistically with software SPSS 18 using a 3×3 factorial experiment in a Completely Randomized Design. The results showed that the highest decorticating and cleaning efficiencies were 93.9 % and 98.4 % respectively while the highest percentage seed loss and mechanical damage index were 12.5 % and 6.3 % respectively. The study also revealed that the decorticating efficiency, cleaning efficiency, seed loss and mechanical damage index increased with increase in decorticating speed. This machine could make large scale production of biodiesel from Jatropha Curcas achievable.