MECHANIZED SYSTEM FOR POPPING AND DECORTICATIONS OF MAKHANA SEEDS (GORGON NUT, EURYALE FEROX)

摘要

The prior art of popping of makhana using manual/ the traditional methods of roasting and hitting the hot roasted nut by mallets are tedious, time consuming and involves drudgery, besides having low popping capacity with variable quality of makhana. The present invention relates to development of a mechanized system for roasting and popping operations continuously. The system consists of a screw conveyor type roaster and a centrifugal type popping unit, which can also decorticate the conditioned seeds, which hitherto, was not in practice. The developed machine is capable for both popping and decorticating the gorgon nut, if properly conditioned. The capacity of the developed system is about 40 kg of raw gorgon nut, which can easily be scaled-up or scaled-down.