Design and fabrication of a combined roaster and expeller for oil expression of castor seed

Abstract

Castor (Ricinus communis L.) seed is one of the ancient and important non-edible oilseeds cultivated around the globe because of the economic importance of its oil for industrial and medicinal value. Currently, processing of the castor seed is being carried out manually and these manual procedures have been associated with a lot of health hazards, oil losses and also affect the quality and yield of castor oil. Therefore, this study has designed and fabricated a combined roaster and expelling machine for the expression of oil from castor seed. The materials used for the fabrication was selected based on available literatures and local market availability. The machine consists of roaster, hopper, cylindrical barrel, tapered worm shaft, oil outlet and cake outlet. It was powered by a 3 hp three-phase electric motor. The expression efficiency and capacity were determined and given as 73.30% and 3 Kg/h respectively. The machine can also be adopted for other oil bearing seeds that are majorly soft seeds.