Evaluation of a cabinet dryer developed for cassava chips

Drying is a very important unit operation in the processing of fresh cassava root tubers into chips because it forestalls unprecedented and, sometimes, incalculable amount of losses often incurred by cassava farmers and processors due to spoilage and massive reduction in quality, and by extension, income. This study aimed at evaluating the performance of a prototype sawdust-­‐ fueled and fan-­‐forced convection cabinet dryer developed for cassava chips. The specific objectives were to develop regression equations to relate drying (or elapsed) time and moisture content for sun drying and drying of fresh peeled cassava chips on each of the three trays of the cabinet dryer. The dryer was evaluated by testing with 4.5 kg of fresh peeled cassava tuber chips. Regression equations were developed to relate percentage moisture contents of the drying cassava chips and elapsed (or drying) time for the two types of drying media. While it took 16 hours to sundry 4.5 kg of the peeled cassava chips to a safe moisture content of 13.9 % w. b. during the humid raining season month of August, it took only 3 hours to bring the same mass of peeled fresh cassava chips to an average safe moisture content of 12.2 % w.b. when placed in the cabinet dryer during the same period of the year implying that there was a 15 hour (or 83.3 %) reduction in time required to dry the same quantity of the fresh peeled cassava chips to a safe moisture content when the cabinet dryer was used

Effects of Fish Feed Carbohydrate Sources on the Floatation and Water Stability of Fish Feed Pellets

Three feeds were formulated to carry out a study on the floatation test and water stability tests of fish pellets. The feeds were formulated using different sources of carbohydrate (Maize, Guinea corn and Wheat). After 30 minutes of exposure to water, Guinea corn maintained 90% of floating pellets while the other two sources had 80% floating pellets respectively. There were significant differences in the percentage number of pellets floating between 0 and 30 minutes (P<0.05). There were also significant differences in the water stability of the pellets, between 10 and 30 minutes. Wheat had the highest water stability of 87.8% while Maize had 75.4% water stability and Guinea corn had the lowest percentage of 71.6% but after 50 minutes Maize had the highest percentage of 61.8% and Guinea corn had the lowest percentage of 52.4%. Keywords: Carbohydrate sources, Floating ability and Water stability. DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/9-18-06 Publication date:September 30th 2019