Design and Fabrication of a Wet Mechanical Brushing Unit for Lye Pre-treated Cassava Root

Abstract

The design and fabrication of a wet mechanical brushing unit for lye pre-treated cassava root was described in this paper. The objective of this work was to determine the time of reaction, the temperature and the concentration of sodium hydroxide solution that will effectively digest the peel and also the speed of the machine, output size, efficiency of peeling and tuber loss. It was determined that using lye solution to digest cassava root peel depends on the severity of the concentration of the solution and the time of root immersion. From the preliminary labouratory tests carried out, the optimal combination of process parameters in terms of concentration, temperature and time of root immersion for UMUCASS44 in lye are 20%, 60°C and 15 minutes, respectively. These values are sufficient to digest the peels of the root for enhanced brushing.