Design and construction of a manually operated cassava grinder for production of industrial starch.

Abstract

The nutritive reserves of cassava is made up of starch which is one of the most important products Synthesized by plants that is consumed as and used in industrial processes. The currently increasing cassava production will lead of higher amount of starch available making it cheaper for industrial processes and opening up of new markets. The design of a cassava grinding machine was made and powered manually to take care of power failure problems to be used in rural settlements where electricity supply is presently erratic and not available at all. The cassava was fed into the machine through the hopper to the grinding drum for grinding cassava tubers into pulp which was discharged out through the discharging unit to the storage vessel. After grinding, cassava. palp was mixed with water and filtered to obtain starch solution where the starch was separated from water by sedimentation and decantation then set on the to dry.