Development and Testing of a Power Operated Coconut Oil Expeller

Abstract

Although, large scale coconut oil extraction is excessively available, it cannot meet the requirements for a small scale farmer. Deficiency in coconut production and high cost of coconut oil extraction impede the small scale coconut farming. To overcome these problems a power operated coconut oil expeller was developed and tested. It consists of a screw shaft, a prime mover, barrel, hopper and outlets are fitted on a supporting frame. The feed rate was optimized to 3.5 kg h-1 and in order to increase oil recovery. The sliced copra is fed to expeller through hopper and get compressed between screw shaft and the barrel. The effective compression and the amount oil recovered depend on moisture content. The optimum moisture was founded as 7.2% (wb), and observed that at this moisture content 53.25% maximum of oil recovery was obtained. The efficiency of the expeller is 84.8 at a working cost @ Rs 4 per kg