Design, Construction, and Performance Evaluation of an Innovative Hybrid Fluidized Bed-Infrared Chickpea Roaster

Author: Mohammad Reza Yousefzadeh Taheri*, Hamid Reza Ghassemzadeh*, Seyyed Faramarz Ranjbar** , Mohammad Moghaddam Vahed*** and Hamid Reza Gazor****

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Abstract

Traditional roasting of chickpea is an arduous and intricate unit operation for processors. It is highly labor intensive, tedious, unhygienic, and productivity is often too low to justify labor and investment time. The aim of this study was thus to design and fabricate a chickpea roaster and evaluate its performance. Raw chickpea of different moisture content (7.92, 8.37 and 9.16%) were roasted at different roasting temperatures (110, 120 and 130°C) and performance characteristics including, roasting time, percentage material loss, functional efficiency, throughput, and machine capacity were evaluated. Results obtained indicated that roasting chickpea of 7.92% at 120°C yielded the best roasting conditions, as it had the least material loss of 1.47% best throughput capacity and functional efficiency of 18.13kg/h and 97.72%, respectively. The fabricated chickpea roaster does not require skilled labor and can effectively address the challenges associated with chickpea roasting. Practic

Keywords

chickpea, roasting, Nokhodchi, fluidized-bed, infrared, performance evaluation

Conclusion

Roasting of raw chickpea into Nokhodchi continues to be a tedious operation. To address this, a prototype chickpea roasting machine was designed, constructed and evaluated. The roasting process took a range of 15.18-20.58 min (0.253-0.343hr), while the optimum chickpea roasting conditions were at raw chickpea moisture content and roasting temperature of 8.61% and 120°C, respectively, with a functional efficiency of 97.72%. The drudgery and tediousness associated with chickpea roasting was effectively eliminated and a more wholesome, safer, and good quality product was produced. Furthermore, the operation of this machine does not require manual labor nor does it entail the use of skilled labor. The equipment is of significant importance to the teeming number of local chickpea processors, dwelling mostly in rural communities. The roaster can also be useful in the mass production of Nokhodchi for commercial purposes.

References

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum Linn.) is one of the oldest and most consumed legumes in the world and in the Mediterranean regions of Asia, Africa and Europe. In addition to its high content in proteins, it contains an important amount of polyphenols and it is considered to be among the richest legumes (Mrad, Rouphael, Maroun, & Louka, 2014). Chickpea is one of the most important beans in Iran, India, Turkey and Australia (Kaur, Singh, & Sodhi, 2005). Processing of chickpea into Nokhodchi (roasted chickpea), involves a number of unit operations including cleaning, grading, roasting, resting, moisturizing, dehulling, cleaning and grading again. Of all the processing steps, the most critical and vital, that determines the final quality of chickpea are the roasting and moisturizing operations (Coskuner & Karababa, 2004; Iyer, 1997). Roasting and puffing are ancient methods of processing pulses and have not been modernized or automated, although some degree of mechanization has occurred rec

How to cite this article

Mohammad Reza Yousefzadeh Taheri, Hamid Reza Ghassemzadeh, Seyyed Faramarz Ranjbar , Mohammad Moghaddam Vahed and Hamid Reza Gazor (2017). Design, Construction, and Performance Evaluation of an Innovative Hybrid Fluidized Bed-Infrared Chickpea Roaster ,