Mechanical processing of banana slices-stem for fiber extraction

Abstract

This research aimed to manufacture a simple fiber extraction machine. The machine prototype consisted of available raw materials. The beater cylinder is the most significant component in this machine. The electric motor of 0.75 kW was used to rotate the beater cylinder. The machine theory is based on the repeated rapid beating of the beaters on a slice-stem of banana. This beating simulated what labor does by using hand hammers to eliminate the juice and extract the fibers. The machine was tested under three rotational speeds of the beater cylinder 650, 750, and 850 rpm and using three beater cylinders with a different number of beaters 8, 10, and 12. The fibers produced by the machine were straight, of good quality, and not shredded, this was achieved in abundance when using the cylinder that has 10 beaters with 750 rpm rotational speeds of the beater cylinder. Thus, under these operating conditions, the extraction efficiency, the time required, and machine productivity were 88%, 40 min, and 8.6 kg h^-1, respectively. The minimum value of the power required was 0.45 kW at the rotational speed of 650 rpm and using the eight beaters. While the maximum value of the power required was 0.64 kW at the rotational speed of 850 rpm and using the number of beaters 12. At the machine productivity of 8.6 kg h^-1, the production cost will be 2.7 L.E. kg^-1. While the costs of manual extracting of the fibers were 10 L.E. kg^-1.