Development of a user friendly tool for pulp/seed separation from toddy palm tree

Abstract

Nungu is one of the seasonal fruit produced in the Asian countries. The major problem related with the processing of Palm fruit is seed separation. Manual separation of seeds using traditional tool is time consuming, labour intensive, cause drudgery and only a skilled person can separate the seed. Therefore a simple hand operated tool which is easy to operate, portable, gender friendly and economical was fabricated. The equipment consists of a knife and a U-shaped cutting blade. The knife removes top and bottom portion which makes further seed separation easy. Then U-shaped blade inserted along the sides of the seed and pulled out the husk. The designed tool has a capacity of about 95 fruits/h and material loss of 2.4 percentage.