Performance evaluation and optimization of a Moringa Oleifera depodding machine: A response surface approach

Depodding of moringa which is still being carried out manually by removing with hand or by hitting a bagcontaining the pods is time-consuming, labour intensive and not economical. The demand for quality oil-bearingmoringa seeds that have a wide area of industrial applications necessitates innovative deppoding techniques thatwill improve its market value. To ameliorate these problems, moringa depoddding machine has been developedbut studies on performance evaluation and optimal parameter setting are sparsely reported. This study therefore,evaluated the effects of the processing factors (moisture content (MC) and speed of rotation (SR)) levels on theperformance (throughput capacity (TP), effective throughput capacity (ETP), labour requirement (LR), depoddingcoefficient (DC), coefficient of wholeness (CW), depodding efficiency (DE), depodded kernel (DK), undepoddedkernel (UK), small broken kernel (SBK), and big broken kernel (BBK)) of the designed and fabricated moringadepodding machine using the response surface methodology and test between subjects-effects. The experimentaldesign used was a two factor, three levels i-optimal randomized design. Mathematical models relating the processfactors to performance were developed. The predicted optimum results obtained were validated using theobserved values of the experiment. MC and SR were found to have a significant effect on the performance of themachine. The predicted optimum performance of the machine were 113.73 kg/hr, 109.45 kg/hr, 0.85 man-hourrequired/Kg, 96.15 %, 0.96, 93.93 %, 0.98, 0.02, 10.64 %, and 1.24 % for TP, ETP, LR, DC, CW, DE, DK, UK, SBK,and BBK respectively at MC and SR of 10.10 % wet basis and 564 rpm. The experimental values at these pro-cessing conditions were close to the predicted optimum results obtained with little deviations which were sta-tistically insignificant. The selected models sufficiently predicted the performance of the developed machine