Technical Notes: Aspiration Cleaning of Soybeans

Soybean samples containing 0.5 to 4.0% foreign material and 3 to 22% splits were aspiration cleaned at air velocities of 19 m/s (3500 ft/min) and 10 m/s (1970 ft/min). Both airflow rates removed 80% of the total non-soybean material, and removed similar amounts of splits. The high airflow rate removed 1.1% of whole soybeans compared to 0.4% at low airflow rate. At either airflow rate, the aspirator removed less saleable material and more non-grain material than previously reported for screen cleaning. Aspiration could be an acceptable method for meeting reduced foreign material requirements for soybeans