'continuous feed aloevera whole gel extraction equipment'

摘要

The invention described in this application relates to continuous feed aloevera whole gel extraction equipment. The device comprises of six major components, (a) Outer frame to hold all the functional part (b) Conveyor belt (c) Drive mechanism to operate the feeding belt and gel extraction system (d) Whole gel extraction mechanism (e) Collection trays for extracted gel and rinds (f) Motor (One hp; Three phase) / manually rotated which acts as a power source for all the moving parts through the gear transmission mechanism. The aloevera leaves after harvesting at an optimum stage is thoroughly washed to remove the extraneous material. The lower 25mm of the leaf base (the white part attached to the large rosette stem of the plant), the tapering point (50-100mm) of the leaf top is cut using a sharp stainless steel knife. Similarly short, sharp spines located along the leaf margins are removed by a sharp knife in such a manner that a part of the rind of the upper portion of the leaf is also removed. The leaves are fed onto the conveyer of the continuous feed gel extraction equipment. The leaves then passes through top and bottom pair of rubber preesure roller assembly which are driven by power source (either motor or by manual rotation) though a gear transmission mechanism. A combination action of the sliding bearing ( 4 nos) mechanism along with the pressure springs ( 4 nos) helps to adjust the gap between the pressure rollers and also take care of the curvature of the aloevera leaves. Two blades made of high carbon steel, one each, just above the bottom set of rollers and just below the top set of rollers, were provided. The outer rind at the bottom of the aloevera leaf got peeled up as the leaf moved forward between the pressure roller assembly. The upper blade was fixed on the spring loaded top roller, so that the blade was positioned just below the top layer of the leaf and peeling of the upper rind of aloevera leaf would take place simultaneously as that of bottom rind as the leaf moved forward by means of conveyer belt. Thus peeling of both top and bottom rinds took place in a single pass. Set of stainless steel rods were provided at the outlet of the gel, which allows the top rind layer of the leaves and gel to be separated. The whole gel is directly collected in the food grade tray which is partially filled with clean water. The top and the bottom rinds are collected separately. Thus there are three outlet viz., for top rind, bottom rind and whole gel. The capacity of the equipment is about 200-225 kg/h (900-1000 leaves/hour) when motorized and lOOkg/h (400-450 leaves/hour) when operated manually. The saving in time and cost over conventional method is up to 70 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively. The aloin content in the extracted whole gel was within the acceptable limits.