Saba A.M., Okafor J.O., Adeniyi O.D., Egwim E.C., and Tsado D.G. (2018) Design and Fabrication of Shea Nut Rotary Dryer for Shea Butter Production in Nigeria, Journal of Chemical Engineering & Process Technology, 9(3): 381. ISSN 2157-7048, doi: 10.4172/2157-7048.1000381

Abstract

Traditional shea nut drying is done with the aid of sun by spreading the material on the mat under the sun and since the supply of it is not specific, we cannot rely on sun for efficient production and since this is the method employed in the traditional production of shea butter, it will always constitute inefficiency in production. And this is one of the problems of traditional method of extraction of shea butter in Nigeria which involves numerous uncontrolled and non-specific practices. As a result of this, research has shown that shea kernels generally undergo hydrolytic and oxidative degradations and are also affected by aflatoxin and other harmful micro-organisms during the post- harvest processing and storage. Consequently, shea butter produced is characterized by high level of iodine number, high percentage of free fatty acid, peroxide value, microbes, and other solid and dissolved impurities Therefore this work seeks to design and fabricate a rotary dryer whose temperature can be controlled, and the accurate moisture content required for extraction of shea butter can be known, and also address the problem of rain getting the shea kernel wet. The dryer was designed for capacity of 60 kg/batch to reduce fresh shea nut moisture content from 40% to about 7%. Briquette from shea shell was used to generate heat for the drying.