Browsing by Author "Lazaro, E.L."
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Item Cassava Sun Drying Performance on Various Surfaces and Drying Bed Depths(2013) Silayo, V.C.K; Lazaro, E.L.; Yustas, Y.; Laswai, H.S.Processing of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) to obtain flour is faced with a lot of technical constraints including inefficient drying. The traditional sun drying method is very inefficient as the product can take 2- 3 days to dry. Mould growth and other problems such as contamination of the product are likely and therefore necessitate intervention. Among the interventions was sun drying on a platform raised 1 m above ground in comparison with drying in a direct box solar dryer; by using trays with various bottom surfaces. The experiments were done using kiroba cassava variety obtained from the University farm, which was peeled and sliced into thin chips (2-3 mm) then sun dried on wire mesh, black polythene, white polythene and woven mat for three days. The material was dried for 8 hours daily after which it was kept indoors overnight. The surface with highest sun drying performance was wire mesh while white polythene was the least. The 10 mm bed depth attained constant weight in just about six hours of drying while for 20 and 30 mm bed depth it was about 16 hours and 40 mm bed depth for about 24 hours. There was moisture adsorption which was at 10, 22 and 28 hours for the 10 mm bed depth, 10, 20, 26 and 28 hours for 20 and 30 mm bed depths, and 28 hours for the 40 mm bed depth. The time 0,10 and 20 hours marked the beginning of drying whereas 8, 18 and 28 hours marked the end of drying. The best performance was therefore obtained on wire mesh and 10 mm bed depth and recommended for sun drying of cassava. However; there is need to investigate on whether there is significant quality difference between cassava sun dried at different bed depths investigated in this studyItem Cassava sun drying performance onvarious surfaces and drying bed depths(2013) Silayo, V.C.K; Lazaro, E.L.; Yustas, Y.; Laswai, H.S.Processing of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) to obtain flour is faced with a lot of technical constraints including inefficient drying. The traditional sun drying method is very inefficient as the product can take 2- 3 days to dry. Mould growth and other problems such as contamination of the product are likely and therefore necessitate intervention. Among the interventions was sun drying on a platform raised 1 m above ground in comparison with drying in a direct box solar dryer; by using trays with various bottom surfaces. The experiments were done using kiroba cassava variety obtained from the University farm, which was peeled and sliced into thin chips (2-3 mm) then sun dried on wire mesh, black polythene, white polythene and woven mat for three days. The material was dried for 8 hours daily after which it was kept indoors overnight. The surface with highest sun drying performance was wire mesh while white polythene was the least. The 10 mm bed depth attained constant weight in just about six hours of drying while for 20 and 30 mm bed depth it was about 16 hours and 40 mm bed depth for about 24 hours. There was moisture adsorption which was at 10, 22 and 28 hours for the 10 mm bed depth, 10, 20, 26 and 28 hours for 20 and 30 mm bed depths, and 28 hours for the 40 mm bed depth. The time 0,10 and 20 hours marked the beginning of drying whereas 8, 18 and 28 hours marked the end of drying. The best performance was therefore obtained on wire mesh and 10 mm bed depth and recommended for sun drying of cassava. However; there is need to investigate on whether there is significant quality difference between cassava sun dried at different bed depths investigated in this study.Item Development of a low cost machine for improved sorghum dehulling efficiency(2013) Lazaro, E.L.; Benjamin, Y.; Mpanduji, S.M.A Pedal operated sorghum dehuller for dehulling tempered grain was developed and tested for its performance using two sorghum varieties (Dionje and Jumbo). The use of short tempering duration (10 – 15 minutes) followed by a short resting period (5 – 10 Minutes) to ensured that all the tempering moisture was absorbed into the grain before the grain was introduced into the dehuller thus eliminating the clogging problem usually associated with conventional abrasive dehullers. This facilitated the removal of the seed coat from the endosperm. The obtained results showed that the developed dehuller was able to achieve high dehulling efficiency (90.1% for Jumbo and 83.4 for Dionje) and high recovery levels compared to conventional abrasive dehullers (45.6 for Jumbo and 40.3% for Dionje). The quality of the dehulled grain was also much higher as indicated by the low ash content, low crude fibre content and superior colour of the flour obtained from the grain dehulled in the developed dehuller compared to flour from grain dehulled using conventional abrasive dehullers. These results demonstrate that it is possible to achieve high quality dehulled sorghum product and high dehulling efficiency by incorporating simple and cheap traditional pretreatments in the mechanical dehulling process. Accordingly, the developed pedal operated dehuller could be very appropriate for small scale sorghum farmers and consumers in the rural areas where spare parts, electrical power and competent technicians to run and maintain the conventional abrasive dehullers are limited.