DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE SOLAR ENERGY POWERED COMMERCIAL EXTRUSION–COOKING MACHINE FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES

Abstract

Extrusion machine is traditionally driven by electrical energy or internal combustion engine and mostly fixed in a position. Incessant outages and need to make the machine movable necessitated this research. This article explored a 3kW commercial extrusion machine with a view to applying solar energy for operation while making the entire system movable to and from the market for commercial purposes. Material balance equations were adopted and applied to extrude 50 kg of yam flour for 2 hours using star-perforated fixed die pattern during evaluation. Sunlight was trapped from sunrise to sunset through solar panels through charge controller and then stored as solar energy in two (2) lithium batteries. Solar energy components such as panels, battery, charge controllers and inverters were designed or sized. The supporting frames were fabricated with 2 and 1.5inches angle bar as the compartment for energy storage device (batteries). The two solar panels were mono-chrome in the capacity of 250 watts each. The evaluation of the developed machine was done only to discover 92% workability. Since the designed rating for the device was met but relatively heavy for movement for average adult person, therefore six (6) roller-tire supports were introduced to ease mobility of the set-up. Mass production of the set-up is recommended as it will be beneficial to both small and medium scale businesses and thereby reduce youth unemployment and environmental pollution from the product of combustion.