Design and construction of a multi-fruit waste shredding machine :

Abstract

Uganda Industrial Research Institute fruit and vegetable pilot plant generate huge amounts of organic wastes during the processing of the fruits into juice, jam and concentrates. However, there are usually delays in the collection of this waste leading to improper sanitation within the company area, odor and harborage for harmful insects. Since this waste is organic in nature, it can be converted to fertilizer through composting or used as animal feed, which involve shredding the organic waste into smaller and uniform pieces. The purpose of this study was to develop a multi-purpose fruit waste shredder system which is easy to maintain at an appropriate cost and that caters for all fruit waste material produced at UIRI as well as coping up with the increasing demand for utilization of fruit wastes in Uganda. The work specifically focused on wastes from passion fruit, mango and pineapple. In order to achieve the above purpose, the methodology below was adopted; data collection which involved literature survey and reviews, and design procedure, different construction techniques, performance testing and economic evaluation of the shredder system. The methodologies were met and the multi- purpose fruit waste shredder machine was designed, constructed, tested and economically evaluated. The machine basically comprises of a shredding chamber, and a motor (2HP, 1450rpm). The arrangement of these parts is connected by sprocket and chain, and pulley mechanism and the throughput capacity was 25.kg/hr.