Development of a Low-Cost Simultaneous Husking and Separating Machine for Arecanut (Betel Nut)
- Posted
- Server
- Preprints.org
- DOI
- 10.20944/preprints202511.1020.v1
After arecanuts (or betel nut) are harvested and dried, the processing of arecanut involves cracking the shell and separating the kernel seed from the shell. In this process, traditional machines required full nuts separation by hands or other machines. For this reason, this study developed a low-cost machine to husk and separate full nuts, broken nuts, and shells simultaneously. In addition, this study also aimed to decrease the number of broken nuts from husking by reduction the power of the husking motor. Once dry betel nuts were fed through the hopper into the spaces between concave sieves and ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle) wheels. The shells of betel nuts were peeled by the shearing force of the tire’s surfaces and the sieves before being consecutively passed through the separating hopper to sort out full nuts, broken nuts, and shells. The experimental results presented the testing performance of 500 betel nuts that can simultaneously husk and separate for 80.2% of full nuts, 13.8% of unhusked nuts, and 6% of broken nuts based on the optimum setting (20 psi of tire pressure, 20 mm of the gap between the tires’ surface and the sieves, 442 rpm for husking tires, and 337 rpm for the separating system).