Automated Malunggay leaves drying and powdering machine

• Main Authors: Abedania, Jerico Mark, Ang, Andrew Casey, Cristobal, Jean Paul, Marasigan, Marie Precious, Palomar, Enrique Miguel
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Drying apparatus > Automation; Milling machinery > Automation; Drying equipment industry > Automation; Leaves > Drying > Automation
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_honors/333
• Institution: De La Salle University

Moringa oleifera, commonly known as Malunggay, has been proven to be one of the world's most nutritious herbs. With these, various local organizations advocate the establishment of Malunggay industry in the Philippines, especially the production of powdered Malunggay leaves as it cater a wide variety of uses due to its nutritional content and health applications. Currently, manual processing of Malunggay leaves which includes air drying and powdering takes two to three days, making it time inefficient. This led to the creation of this machine that aims to dry and powder Malunggay leaves automatically and faster than the manual process. With this machine, ten kilograms of Malunggay leaves are processed per batch. Air temperature, heated by two electric stove coils, is regulated between 65±5 ºC using a temperature controller. An air blower is used to distribute heated air towards 12 insulated flexible tubes. Mixer inside the drying chamber is used to further hasten the drying process. After the drying time is achieved, dried leaves having a final moisture content of 7-10% are finally transferred to the powdering stage. The whole system is automated through the use of a Programmable Logic Device. Experiments show that machine requires a pre-heating time of 12 minutes and 4 seconds before the temperature stabilizes at 65±5 ºC. Drying curve of Malunggay leaves indicated that a drying period of 55 minutes is required to attain a product with a final moisture content of 7-10%. This machine is proven to offer an efficient drying rate which is 78.5 times much faster than the manual process. It only takes an approximate of 83 minutes to complete the whole drying and pulverizing process. Also, for different applications, sizes of the powder may be varied by changing the size of the sieve blade of the pulverizer.