DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF LOW COST PEANUT COATING MACHINE

Abstract

Coated peanut snacks exist in many super markets in Nigeria. However, machines used in their production are limited in existence. Where the machine exist, the costs of acquisition are exorbitant and beyond the reach of household and small scale peanut producers which still coat peanut with flour and egg manually. Therefore a low cost machine for coating peanut was designed and fabricated using locally available materials to improve small – large production output. The machine components which consists of a rotating drum, frame, shaft, speed regulator, the electric motor and the driving and driven pulleys was tested for coating 2.0kg of peanut with 2.7kg of wheat flour wheat flour and 0.51kg of egg suspension. The comparison between manual method and mechanical method shows that the production increase. The machine coating efficiency of 98.7% and effective coating capacity of 118.4kg/hr were obtained. The estimated cost of production of the machine was ₦110,410.00 ($184).