Development and performance evaluation of automatic plum seed remover

Abstract

Plum (Japanese Apricot) having various economic importances, has been mainly processed for valuable products from its fleshes. To obtain plum flesh, seed removing is necessary but serious obstacle is to remove seeds. Therefore, an automatic plum seed remover (APSR) was identified, designed, manufactured and evaluated. The introduced APSR was comprised with an automatic plum supplying unit, plum positioning unit, punching and cutting unit, discharging unit, and controlling unit. The cutting unit was equipped with zero, two, or four blade cutters. The performance parameters of the APSR were assessed including in terms of flesh recovery, seed breakage, deseeding efficiency, and machine efficiency. In order to the performance evaluation of APSR, experiments were conducted at different conditions based on positioning competency on both fresh and frozen plums. The APSR was exhibited the better results comparing with Japanese and traditional plum seed remover. The test results of the developed machine showed 100% deseeding efficiency for ripe and hard plums. The capacity of APSR was 80 kg h⁻¹ without seed breakage. Flesh amount of plums were significantly different between four and zero blade cutters with positioning angles nearly, 0°, 15° and 180°. The developed APSR was recorded 87.90% flesh recovery for ripe plums and 83.02% flesh recovery for hard plums, respectively. APSR is preferred, because of its minimal flesh loss, rapid operation, increased productivity, low seed breakage and low labor expenditure. Hence, this APSR will take in advanced plum technology and be useful to flourish the plum industry for post-harvest processing of plum seeds.