Optimization of Grading Efficiency of a Specific Gravity Separator to Upgrade the Quality of (Moringa oleifera Lam.) Seeds

Abstract

The quality of Moringa oleifera seeds need to be ensured before sowing orusing the seeds for other commercial purposes like oil extraction. In thisstudy, an attempt was made to increase the effciency of a specifc gravityseparator machine to upgrade the quality of moringa seed by suitablychanging the machine settings viz., horizontal height (cm), vertical height(cm), and oscillation speed (rpm) of the deck and air blow rate (m3/hr). Theoptimization of moringa seed quality upgrading specifc gravity machinehas a horizontal height (cm), vertical height (cm), and air blow rate (m3/hr)adjustments of 0, 1.5, and 4.0 respectively at 450 rpm of deck oscillation.Under the above-optimized conditions, seed lot graded into fve categoriesviz., A, B, C, D and E. Germination percentage of three grade viz., C, D, andE have 93.0%, 97.0%, and 96.0% respectively, which was higher than thegermination percentage of ungraded bulk moringa seed lot (91.0%) used inthis experiment. Seed with undesirable size and low in weight got separatedas ‘A’ grade material. The optimization of moringa seed upgarding processshowed the optimal processing conditions for grading the moringa seedbased on physical property of the seed. The optimization of the moringaseed-grading machine would provide necessary information on combinationof seed, operation and design parameters for enhancing seed quality.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.000388

Pages

00 - 10

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords