Design, development and performance evaluation of hand operated coating machine for horticultural produce
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Date
2018-08
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Edible coating is a preservation technique that increases the shelf life of horticultural produce and also maintain its quality characteristics during storage. This technique of horticultural produce preservation has been in use since long back in post harvest processing industries. Application of coating solution on horticultural produce is doing using dipping, spraying, panning and fluidized bed coating methods. In industries spraying coating machine is available for coating of horticultural produce. Coating machines are not available in market for commercial horticultural produce producers. Therefore, it has become essential to develop hand operated coating machine for commercial use of producers. Large amount of fruits and vegetables produces in whole world every year and around 40-45 % of it gets wastage due to improper post harvest management. Therefore, this research work was undertaken to develop hand operated coating machine for horticultural produce which is round in shape that aimed to shelf life enhancement. Hand operated coating machine working on the principle of reciprocating motion of perforated plate upward and downward was designed and fabricated. The cost of hand operated coating machine was Rs. 20540. The hand operated coating machine was designed by studying the physical and mechanical properties of apple fruit and was fabricated in the department of Post Harvest Process and Food Engineering, G. B. Pant university of agriculture and technology, Pantnagar. The physical and mechanical properties of apple fruit was calculated at the initial moisture content of 80 % (w.b) and average value of length, width and thickness of apples were 64.35±1.20 mm, 62.71±2.1 mm and 59.30±0.8 mm respectively. The geometric mean diameter, bulk density and angle of repose were found to be 7.9-8.5 mm, 460-170 kg/m3 and 19-200. Machine coating efficiency, change in colour and coating machine capacity were determined in range of 71-93 %, 14.58-32.35 and 30 kg/hr, respectively. A best performance of coating machine for maximum machine coating efficiency were found to 0 m/s dryer air velocity and 6 s dipping time and model was found to be significant.
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