A Rotary Separator for the Dry Mixture of Palm Kernel and Shell

Effective separation of palm kernel and shell is an important process in the downstream industrial utilization of the constituents. In view of the limitations of the conventional wet separators, a rotary separator employing a multi-cyclic separation process was developed for the dry mixture. Machine parts were designed following standard engineering principles for part-sizing, using locally available materials. Cracked palm nut mixture was classified by sieve analysis, and the fractions retained on the 10 and 15 mm sieves were used for the evaluation of the machine performance. Operating the separator at 55 rpm yielded kernel recovery and kernel purity of 96% and 42.86%, respectively, for the mixture retained on 10 mm sieves. Corresponding shell recovery, shell purity, separation efficiency and throughput capacity, at the same speed were 100, 81.71, 78.45% and 277 kg/h, respectively. Separation of the mixture retained on 15 mm sieve was feasible at 60 rpm with kernel recovery and kernel purity of 91.89 and 73.12%, respectively. The shell recovery, shell purity, separation efficiency and throughput capacity were 80.16, 94.17, 73.66 % and 313 kg/h, respectively. The results showed that the separation technique is viable for effective separation of the dry palm kernel and shell mixture. Keywords: Machine Design, Rotary separator, Dry mixture, Kernel, Shell, Palm nut