VENKATACHALAPATHY, KVIKAS, L2016-11-292016-11-2941139Th-10330http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/88022Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) seeds are used to extract oil for consumption. Striped sunflower seeds are primarily used for food as a result, they may be called confectionary sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds are more commonly eaten as a healthy snack than as part of a meal. The process of decortications, includes separation of kernel which is done manually by hand used in confectionaries. This is time and labour consuming process. To address this manually operated sunflower seed decorticator was developed and its performance was evaluated. The developed sunflower seed decorticator consists of cylinder and a concave. The cylinder was manufactured using dimple sheet of size 32.4×15cm, welded on the cylinder using bearings and flat plates. The concave was fabricated using 20 mm size mild steel rods of length 30 cm with perforations (round) of 5mm, 4.5mm and 4mm size used at different treatments by considering average dimensions of sunflower seeds. The design makes the seed kernels and husk fall through the perforations obstructing the whole seeds. The clearance between concave and cylinder was maintained 0.5 cm and maintained constant cylinder speed (56 rpm). The best results under the developed decorticator were decortication efficiency, breakage and capacity of 98.43,1.09% and 5.95(kg/h) respectively, at 12% moisture content and also for pretreatments (dried seeds) the decortication efficiency, breakage and capacity were 98.03, 1.55% and 6.08(kg/h) respectively. The cost of decorticating 1kg of raw sunflower seeds at 12% moisture content was Rs.1.69/–, only and the cost ratio of the developed decorticator was 1:1.19enThesis