Student invents small-scale pineapple juice extractor

Aug 01, 2005

CAN you live with a man under the same roof when you are fabricating machines such as these?” This was the question a showgoer asked Teddy Kizza, a Makerere University agriculture engineering student.

By John Kasozi
CAN you live with a man under the same roof when you are fabricating machines such as these?” This was the question a showgoer asked Teddy Kizza, a Makerere University agriculture engineering student. This was at the Gatsby Small Scale industrialists show at the Uganda Manufacturers Association grounds recently.
“It has taken me about a month to collect data, fabricate it, look at engineering principles, food processes and safety. There are limitations and constraints involved,” says Kizza as she turned the handle of the extractor. “The performance is excellent. Samples were carried out on every 10kg of pineapples. On average the juice extracted weighed about 5.45kg. On average, the recovery was 54.5% in three minutes and 12 seconds.
“It performs better than the prototype with 41.25% and 3.64% in juice recovery and output respectively. It requires minimum costs and skills for fabrication, operation and maintenance,” Kizza says.
She says the prototype is bulky and hard to clean. its parts are permanently fixed. Another problem is the oil contaminating the juice. To ensure a long-life span of the stainless steel extractor, maintenance is a prerequisite. The removable parts should be scrubbed immediately after use, in warm water using a brush with soft bristles .
The threaded parts should be lubricated using recommended grease before operating the machine. It has to be kept away from the rain.
Kizza says, “the extractor improves the quality and minimises mass loss of the product. It also increases the life of the processed pineapple products,” she says.
This can alleviate poverty and improves health. Processing pineapples into nutritious and value-added products reduces malnutrition caused by the low energy weaning foods.
Tropical Crops Monocotyledons, by J W Purseglove, says the edible portion of the pineapple, which constitutes about 60% of the fresh fruit, contains; water (85%) of protein (0.4 %), sugar (14%), fat (0.1%) and fibre (0.5%). Pineapples are a source of vitamins A, B1 and protease and bromelain — protein-digesting enzymes. A full flavour is got when the pineapples are ripe. The central part of the fruit is removed by the machine and crushed. The juice can be made into jam or wine. Sugar syrup is obtained from the mill juice, which was formerly a waste product. Alcohol and citric acid may also be made. After extracting the juice, the fruit residue can be made into bran, which is used as cattle feeds. The major constraints Kizza encountered were inadequate funds and a time limit in data collection and fabrication.
Ends

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