PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF INTEGRATED COCONUT GRATING AND MILK EXTRACTING DEVICE

Abstract

Coconut milk extraction from the kernel is usually done in two processes and with two different machines. First, the coconut meat is crushed into smaller pieces using a grater and then the grated meat is taken to an extracting device where the milk will be removed from the meat. This makes the process a bit cumbersome and time consuming. Hence, this work develops a suitable device with a simple design and easy to operate mechanism efficiently grating the coconut meat and extracting the milk in a single operation. The system is made up of a hopper, rolling grater, screw press, sieve, and an electric motor, all assembled on a metallic frame. The capacity of the grater was determined to be 299 kg/h. Three phases, 3 horse power electric gear motor was employed in running the machine with the speed of 750rpm during the performance evaluation of the device. The experimental machine gave the highest milk yield of 39.22% and an average milk yield of 36.04% which is about 81% of the moisture content of the coconut kernel. Also, the average milk extraction efficiency was 35.15%, showing that the machine can produce about 105 kg of milk per hour.