Manufacturing and performance evaluation of a local machine for extracting pomegranate seeds

Abstract EN

An innovated machine was manufactured for extracting pomegranate seedsdistinguished of high productivity, simple design and low seed damage.

The extracting machine wasdepending on an innovative system to extract the seeds from the peels and flesh by vibration.

Experiments were carried out to study some different operating parameters which were six differentexciter frequencies S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, and S6 corresponding to 0.0, 28.1, 52.0, 75.9, 101.2 and 121.4Hz respectively, five different sieve amplitudes of 10, 20, 30 40 and 50 mm and four differentseparator shaft speeds of 100, 200, 300 and 400 rpm, affecting the performance of the manufacturedmachine.

The machine performance was evaluated in terms of machine productivity, total seed losses, extracting efficiency, specific energy and criterion cost.

The experimental results revealed thatmachine productivity (0.25 Mg/hr.

), total seed losses (6.01% ), extracting efficiency (70.19% ), specificenergy (8.8 kW.

hr.

/Mg) and criterion cost (400 LE/Mg) were in the optimum region under thefollowing conditions of 101.2 Hz exciter frequency, 40 mm sieve amplitude and 200 rpm separatorspeed.