ABSTRACT

 Effective separation of palm kernel and shell is an important process in the downstream industrial utilization of the constituents. An inclined belt separator machine was designed to effectively separate palm kernel from the shell at adequate separation efficiency. The machine was designed with locally available materials and fabricated for easy maintenance and to ease the drudgery, time consuming, undue cost and cumbersome operation encountered in the traditional/existing separation processes for separating palm kernel from the shell. The inclined separator technique exploits the frictional characteristics of fabric material at the determined inclined angle of 19° above angle of repose of the kernel but below that of shell to enable the free fall of palm kernel nut. The developed machine was evaluated for separating efficiency based on machine and operational factors. The result revealed that maximum separating efficiency of 91% was attained optimal settings of roller speed of 58.3rpm, feeding distance of 500mm and with inclined frictional surface of fabric material (Rug). This therefore, resulted in improved separating efficiency and quality of palm kernel oil production as shell contamination of the oil is reduced due to high kernel recovery of the machine.