Eco-design of cassava press in agrifood manufacturing in Africa
International Journal of Development Research
Eco-design of cassava press in agrifood manufacturing in Africa
Received 09th October, 2019; Received in revised form 17th November, 2019; Accepted 11th December, 2019; Published online 31st January, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Jannot HOUNSOUNOU et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Gari is cassava flour widely used in West Africa, more specifically in Benin. The transformation of cassava into Gari involves several stages. The pressing step is one of the steps to remove hydrocyanic acid from the pulp, multiply microorganisms and help increase the palatability of Gari. Pressing equipment is made of metals which negatively impact the environment because their welding requires energy consumption and generates waste (toxic gases, electrode residues and iron filings). This study is undertaken with the aim of minimizing the negative environmental impacts due to the manufacture of presses. To achieve this, we used the IBS method “Innovation for Breaking and Sustainability” to eco-design the press. The implementation consists in analyzing and evaluating the negative environmental impacts of the press. The work made it possible to design and to produce on the one hand two prototypes of cassava press and on the other hand to make their comparison. The first press produced is conventional, that is to say of steel materials whose pressing system is single-pitch screw. The second, called eco designed press, is made of wood material with a variable pitch pressing system. The results of the tests made it possible to obtain characteristics such as: Total mass 90.417 kg, Manufacturing time 08h 27min 08sec, Electric energy consumed for manufacturing 17.8 kWh, Efficiency 12.9537 ± 0.6427 (kg/h), Performance 6547 ± 86.6516 (sec), Extraction rate 0.2718 ± 0309 for the conventional press and Total mass 51.05 kg, Manufacturing time 12h 21min 10s, Electric energy consumed for manufacturing 16.04 kWh; Efficiency 18.0710 ± 0.3342 (k /h), Performance 4692.5 ± 212.8291 (sec), Extraction rate 0.3326 ± 0.0072, for the eco-designed press. The results showed that the eco-designed press generates fewer pollutants and consumes less electrical energy and fewer materials. It is almost half the weight, 1.5 times more profitable and 28% more efficient. So we generate less waste.
