Development of palm kernel nut cracking machine for rural use

Abstract

Common traditional techniques of breaking palm kernel nuts in rural areas where it is produced involved a lots of drudgery and hazard. The goal of this research work was to design, construct and test the performance of a palm kernel nut cracking machine for local use at affordable cost. Samples were test-ran, cracked and replicated at different shaft speeds (r/min). with developed machine. The results showed that the un-cracked nuts were 2.50%, 2.00%, 1.50%, 1.25% and 1.00 %, the partially cracked were 2.75%, 2.75%, 2.25%, 2.00% and 1.75 %, the un-broken kernels were 93%, 94%, 95%, 94.5% and 94 %, that of broken kernels were 1.75%, 1.50%, 1.50%, 2.50% and 3.25 % at set speeds of 800, 1200, 1600, 2000 and 2400 r/min respectively. The throughput of the machine increased from 10.91 to 38.00 g/s as the speed of the machine increased from 800 to 2400 r/min. Also the performance efficiencies of the developed machine were 93%, 94%, 95%, 94.5% and 94% while the overall efficiencies were 90.86%, 92.12%, 93.58%, 93.08% and 93.06 % for the set speeds. The cost of the developed palm nut cracker was N150,000 (US$ 909), while the imported machines of similar capacity had market price range between N250,000 (US$ 1,515) to N300,000 (US$ 1,818). Conclusively, the locally-made machine performed well and was found cheaper and more economical for the establishment of small scale industry especially in the developing countries than imported types.