CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Agriculture is now one of the most important sectors it plays a role Indian

economy. In order to further develop this sector technology has become one of the

main components. The farmers on the field burn most of these wastes after the

harvesting of crops. Thus the agricultural waste burning phenomena is being

repeated every year. In order to use these wastes for some economic benefits, like

power plants, industries. So the necessary of such machine was felt to utilize all

kinds of agricultural waste after shredding, which could be economical and

practicable. The project is developed and manufactures a machine which will be

used for producing shredded organic wastes for farmers without any use of

electricity, these organic wastes will increase the efficiency than any other

conventional means, which are obviously harmful for human health, environment,

land etc. parts used for manufacturing such a machine are agitator, hopper,

collector tank, bevel gear pairs, pulleys flat belt drive and paddling mechanism. A

pulverizer or grinder is a mechanical device used for the grinding of many different

types of materials. The chaff cutter cum pulverize is a machine which is used for

the combine operation of cutting the straw and pulverizing the necessary animal

foods such as corn, wheat, millet etc. A chaff cutter is a mechanical device used to
1
cut the straw or hay into small pieces so as to mix it together with other forage

grass and fed to horses and cattle. This improves the animal's digestion and

prevents animals from rejecting any part of their food. A Pulverizer is a machine

whose purpose is to shred or crush aggregate material into smaller pieces by the

repeated blows of number of hammering plates.

1.2 Statement of problem

In Nigeria today despite the giant strides in modernization other areas still remain

quite backwards in its production and food processing industries. There’s a high

demand for the supply of wheat-based food, the cassava flour import has increased

over the years and with present state of the economy there is a steady rise in cost of

such refined grain products. Hence this has resulted to the emerging need for this

refined grain product such as flour to be produced locally.

There are various traditional or indigenous way of processing grains in our rural

areas, one of which is, by pounding the dried grains in a mortar with a pestle and

sieving it with a screen, but this can no longer meet the demand for the refined

grain flour. Although there have been some mechanized methods adopted by small

scale farmer and food processing unit, but this method has proven to be time and

energy consuming and does not result in high quality grade produce and are bulky

and therefore avoided by the indigenous manufacturers. Some of these machines

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only provide on function, either grinding or sieving, therefore are not feasible,

since some part of the process still needs to be carried out manually.

Also, the existing mills such as the attrition mill, the hammer mill used by some

industries show some inefficiency. Such inefficiencies are:

i. Inability to produce uniform grind of the refined grain flour.

ii. Time taken to crush material to the size of the screen as in the hammer

mill.

iii. Contamination of refined grain flour due to multi-purpose nature of the

mill, particularly in non-specialized production processes

To solve this problem a machine is needed that can process the major function of

grinding, sieving and storage. It has to be affordable and reasonably small in size,

to allow use by average indigenous farmers in grain processing. Without these,

unrefined grains will have little value in the commodity market.

1.3 Objective of study

The main objective of this project is to design and fabricate a farm waste

pulverizer. This project has the following specific objectives

i. To develop a compact and portable in size allowing for easy

transportation and less installation space.

ii. To design a mill pulveriser, which will be cost effective, and reasonably

affordably
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 iii. To fabricate a mill which will be easy to operate and maintain

incorporated to vibration and noise.

iv. To design a pulveriser which will reduce the time of production and easy

to operate and maintain.

v. To develop a fully integrated machine which will be able to pulverize

various grains and transport them to a storing unit for further processing

and packaging.

1.4 Justification of study

Engineering and technological advancement in our society has helped improve the

standard of living in our present day world. Grain processing plays a key role in

the socio-economic development of most West African countries. In Nigeria

refined grains flour are used for the production of bread, noodles, pasta, crackers

and biscuits (cookies). This has contributed to Nigeria’s wheat market which was

estimated at just under $1 billion in U.S. exports as of 2010. Also the Demand for

other grains such as corn, sorghum, millet is also very high but, there is a

Production deficit of processed grains locally which results to the importation of

various refined grains. However, Nigeria has a potential to increase its production

through the application of improved processing methods and better marketing

(Gourichon, 2013).

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 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Pulverizers

Pulverizers provide material size reduction services for customers with a variety of

goals, such as creatine powder for medicine, creating pulp for paper production,

grinding grain for food production, tire-shredding and recycling, breaking down

building materials, turning soil, crushing vehicles for scrap, grinding rock samples,

and more (Rei et al., 2021).

Fig 2.1: Pulverizers (Rei et al., 2021)

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Some of the industries that rely on pulverizers include construction, agriculture,

industrial manufacturing, power generation, pharmaceutical products development,

landscaping, laboratory, printing, recycling, and material processing.

Pulverizers are generally sorted into three main categories: crushers, impactors and

grinding mills. Crushers are designed to reduce the size of large, dense materials

such as rock and stone to gravel or dust. Primarily, crushers are used for size

reduction, easy disposal or recycling and to simplify differentiation of materials.

One of the most common crusher designs is the jaw crusher, which has two jaws,

one that is stationary and one that is mobile. Impactors also referred to as impact

crushers, are very similar to crushers but differ in the manner of size reduction.

Impaction is force that is transmitted through a collision or by striking one body

against another, whereas crushing is the use of pressure created by two opposing

forces (Kolawole et al., 2020).

Crushing and impacting utilize pressure and collision-wrought force. Grinding

mills use friction to break down materials. The friction in grinding mills is brought

about as a result of grinding media, which can refer to many different coarse

materials such as non-sparking lead, ceramics, brass, bronze and flint.

Two common types of grinding mills are ball mills and hammermills. A ball mill is

constructed from a rotating cylinder that is mounted horizontally. They use

grinding media such as steel balls or rods, which, as the cylinder turns, are tossed
6
around the cylinder, smashing into the material to be grinded as they do so.

Hammermills utilize numerous hammers encased in steel that rapidly revolve in a

vertical plane (Stephen et al., 2019)

2.2 Types of pulverizers

2.2.1 Ball and tube mills

A ball mill is a pulverizer that consists of a horizontal rotating cylinder, up to three

diameters in length, containing a charge of tumbling or cascading steel balls,

pebbles, or rods. A tube mill is a revolving cylinder of up to five diameters in

length used for fine pulverization of ore, rock, and other such materials; the

material, mixed with water, is fed into the chamber from one end, and passes out

the other end as a slurry (Anderson, 2014).

Both types of mill include liners that protect the cylindrical structure of the mill

from wear. Thus the main wear parts in these mills are the balls themselves, and

the liners. The balls are simply "consumed" by the wear process and must be re-

stocked, whereas the liners must be periodically replaced (Anderson, 2014).

The ball and tube mills are low-speed machines that grind the coal with steel balls

in a rotating horizontal cylinder. Due to its shape, it is called a tube mill and due to

use of grinding balls for crushing, it is called a ball mill, or both terms as a ball

tube mill.

B – Broyer (Name of inventor).

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B – Boulet (French word for balls).

D – Direct firing.

47 – Diameter of shell (in decimeters) i.e. 4.7 m diameter.

72 – Length of shell (in decimeters) i.e. 7.2 m length (Anderson, 2014).

The grinding in the ball and tube mill is produced by the rotating quantity of steel

balls by their fall and lift due to tube rotation. The ball charge may occupy one

third to half of the total internal volume of the shell. The significant feature

incorporated in the BBD mills is its double end operation, each end catering to one

elevation of a boiler. The system facilitated entry of raw coal and exit of pulverized

fuel from same end simultaneously. This helps in reducing the number of

installations per unit (Igbeka et al., 2020).

2.2.2 Mill construction details

A ball tube mill may be described as a cylinder made of steel plates having

separate heads or trunions attached to the ends with each trunion resting on suitable

bearings for supporting the machine. The trunions are hollow to allow for the

introduction of discharge of the materials undergoing reduction in size. The mill

shell is lined with chilled iron, carbon steel, manganese steel, or high chrome liners

attached to shell body with counter sunk bolts. These liners are made in different

shapes so that the counter inside surface of the mill is suited for requirement of a

particular application (Odighoh, 2013).

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The shells are of three pieces. The intermediate shell connects to the end shells by

flange joints and the total length of shell is 7.2 m. The liners are fastened to the

inner side of mill shell (cylindrical part) to protect the shell from the impact of the

steel balls. There are 600 liners of ten variants in each shell weighing 60.26 tonnes.

The original lift value of the liners is 55 mm. and the minimum lift allowed is

20 mm (Olayeni, 2022).

2.2.2.1 Operation

The primary air input to a ball tube mill performs a dual function. It is used for

drying and as the fuel transport medium, and by regulating it the mill output is

regulated. Governed by the pulverized fuel outlet temperature requirement, the

cold air and hot air dampers are regulated to achieve the correct primary air

temperature. In addition to raising the coal temperature inside the mill for drying

and better grinding, the same air works as the transport medium to move the

pulverized coal out of the mill: it travels through the annular space between the

fixed trunnion tubes and the rotating hot air tube onwards to the classifier. Coal-

laden air passes through double cone static classifiers, with adjustable classifier

vanes, for segregation into pulverized fuel of the desired fineness, and coarse

particles. The pulverised fuel continues its journey towards the coal burners for

combustion. The coarse particles rejected in the classifier are returned to the mill

for another cycle of grinding (Omolehin et al., 2017).

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In order to avoid excess sweeping of coal from the mill, only part of the primary

air, directly proportional to the boiler load demand, is passed through the mill.

Furthermore, to ensure sufficient velocity of pulverized fuel to avoid settling in the

pipes, an additional quantity of primary air is fed into a mixing box on the raw coal

circuit. This by-pass air tapped from the primary air duct going into the mill makes

an appreciable contribution to the drying of raw coal, by a flash drying effect, in

addition to picking up the pulverized fuel from the mill outlet for its transportation

towards the classifiers (Omolehin et al., 2017).

The tube mill output (responding to boiler load demand) is controlled by regulating

the primary air-flow. This regulation, by sweeping pulverized fuel from the mill, is

very fast; comparable with oil firing response, but needs the coal level to be

maintained in the mill. A control circuit monitors the coal level in the mill, and

controls the speed of the raw coal feeder to maintain it. Maintaining the coal level

in the mill offers a built-in capacity cushion of pulverized fuel to take care of short

interruptions in the raw coal circuit (Omolehin et al., 2017).

The mill is pressurized and the air-tightness is ensured by plenum chambers around

the rotating trunnion filled with pressurized seal air. Bleeding seal air from plenum

chamber to the mill maintains separation between pulverized fuel in the Mill and

the outside atmosphere. Inadequacy or absence of seal air will allow escape of

pulverized fuel into atmosphere. On the other hand, an excess of seal air leaking
10
into mill will affect the mill outlet temperature. As such the seal air is controlled by

a local control damper maintaining just sufficient differential pressure for sealing

(Ogunjimi et al., 2022).

2.2.3 Ring and ball mill

This type of mill consists of two types of rings separated by a series of large balls,

like a thrust bearing. The lower ring rotates, while the upper ring presses down on

the balls via a set of spring and adjuster assemblies, or pressurised rams. The

material to be pulverized is introduced into the center or side of the pulverizer

(depending on the design). As the lower ring rotates, the balls to orbit between the

upper and lower rings, and balls roll over the bed of coal on the lower ring. The

pulverized material is carried out of the mill by the flow of air moving through it.

The size of the pulverized particles released from the grinding section of the mill is

determined by a classifier separator. If the coal is fine enough to be picked up by

the air, it is carried through the classifier. Coarser particles return to be further

pulverized (Jibowo, 2020)

2.2.4 Vertical spindle roller mill

Similar to the ring and ball mill, the vertical spindle roller mill uses large "tires" to

crush the coal. These mills are usually found in utility plants.

Raw coal is gravity-fed through a central feed pipe to the grinding table where it

flows outwardly by centrifugal action and is ground between the rollers and table.
11
Hot primary air for drying and coal transport enters the windbox plenum

underneath the grinding table and flows upward through a swirl ring having

multiple sloped nozzles surrounding the grinding table. The air mixes with and

dries coal in the grinding zone and carries pulverized coal particles upward into a

classifier (Adesoji, 2022).

Fine pulverized coal exits the outlet section through multiple discharge coal pipes

leading to the burners, while oversized coal particles are rejected and returned to

the grinding zone for further grinding. Pyrites and extraneous dense impurity

material fall through the nozzle ring and are plowed, by scraper blades attached to

the grinding table, into the pyrites chamber to be removed. Mechanically, the

vertical roller mill is categorized as an applied force mill. There are three grinding

roller wheel assemblies in the mill grinding section, which are mounted on a

loading frame via pivot point. The fixed-axis roller in each roller wheel assembly

rotates on a segmentally-lined grinding table that is supported and driven by a

planetary gear reducer direct-coupled to a motor. The grinding force for coal

pulverization is applied by a loading frame. This frame is connected by vertical

tension rods to three hydraulic cylinders secured to the mill foundation. All forces

used in the pulverizing process are transmitted to the foundation via the gear

reducer and loading elements. The pendulum movement of the roller wheels

provides a freedom for wheels to move in a radial direction, which results in no

12
radial loading against the mill housing during the pulverizing process (Adesoji,

2022).

Depending on the required coal fineness, there are two types of classifier that may

be selected for a vertical roller mill. The dynamic classifier, which consists of a

stationary angled inlet vane assembly surrounding a rotating vane assembly or

cage, is capable of producing micrometer-fine pulverized coal with a narrow

particle size distribution. In addition, adjusting the speed of the rotating cage can

easily change the intensity of the centrifugal force field in the classification zone to

achieve coal fineness control real-time to make immediate accommodation for a

change in fuel or boiler load conditions. For the applications where a micrometer-

fine pulverized coal is not necessary, the static classifier, which consists of a cone

equipped with adjustable vanes, is an option at a lower cost since it contains no

moving parts. With adequate mill grinding capacity, a vertical mill equipped with a

static classifier is capable of producing a coal fineness up to 99.5% or higher <50

mesh and 80% or higher <200 mesh, while one equipped with a dynamic classifier

produces coal fineness levels of 100% <100 mesh and 95% <200 mesh, or better.

In 1954 a Jet Pulverizer was developed in which operates like a Vertical Pulverizer

only the item is pulverized by the high speed air action (Adesoji, 2022).

13
2.2.5 Bowl mill

Similar to the vertical roller mill, it also uses tires to crush coal. There are two

types, a deep bowl mill, and a shallow bowl mill.

2.2.6 Attrition mill

The attrition mill is a device for mechanically reducing solid particle size by

intense agitation of slurry of material being milled and coarse milling media. For

example, in 10 hours of milling, specific surfaces of 40 and 25 m2/g were obtained

for alumina and barite, corresponding to 38 and 56 nm equivalent spherical

diameter, respectively. Size reduction rates for relatively coarse particles were

first-order and increased linearly with power input to the mill. Optimum milling

medium concentration corresponded to medium particles moving a distance of

approximately 0.7 of their diameter before collision with another such particle.

Power characteristics of the attrition mill were essentially the same as those of a

radial flow turbine mixer. Laminar flow became disrupted at NRe ≈ 200, while

turbulent flow was established at NRe > 8000. Slurries of fine powders exhibited

the same linear power-average density dependence as single-phase liquids.

However, a different dependence was observed with large particles.

2.2.7 Beater wheel mill

Beater wheel mills are designed to prepare a coal powder air-fuel mixture for

combustion in furnace chambers of coal-freed power plants by coal drying,

14
pulverizing, classifying and transport. Their multipurpose function usually results

in operation instability accompanied by unacceptable vibration. This usually is a

significant problem due to unplanned shutdowns. Beater wheel mill maintenance

program requires special attention due to operation under non-stationary

conditions. The purpose of this paper was to identify pulverizing process parameter

that affect the beater wheel mill vibration level and severity at the same time by

using statistical principles under a wide range of operating conditions. This paper

intends to establish the foundations to investigate correlation of pulverizing

process parameter with beater wheel mill vibration in order to set up a

better predictive maintenance program. To achieve this goal, the beater wheel mill

vibration under different combinations of selected pulverizing process parameters

are analyzed using statistical tools. Experiments were carried out under different

conditions for two identical but separated beater wheel mills. The influence of

pulverizing process parameter, such as electrical current of the driving motor, mill

capacity, boiler production, coal types on mill vibration are investigated to identify

the potential malfunction of beater wheel mills and their associated components for

predictive maintenance purposes. The results have demonstrated that the selected

pulverizing process parameters do not have significant influence on beater wheel

mill vibration severity. Unlike most coal mills where pulverizing process

parameters must take into account, here with beater wheel impact mills it is not the
15
case and condition monitoring of these mills could be conducted offline or online

using standard vibration condition monitoring methods.

2.2.8 MPS mills

MPS mills, also known as applied force mills or vertical spindle roller mills, use

tires as their grinding media. They primarily pulverize coal, which is piped onto a

grinding table via a central feed pipe, where the tires can roll over it.

2.3 Crushers

Crushers are used to crush large, dense materials like rock and stone, until it is dust

or gravel. Usually, they are used to simplify the differentiation of materials or to

reduce materials and/or prepare them for recycling or disposal. The most common

type of crusher is the jaw crusher.

2.3.1 Jaw crushers

Jaw crushers feature one stationary jaw and one mobile jaw. They can be classified

further based on the position of the pivoting of their mobile jaw, also called a

swing jaw. These classifications include blake crushers, dodge crushers, and

universal crushers.

2.3.2 Blake crushers

Blake crushers are characterized by a swing jaw fixed at the upper position.

2.3.3 Dodge crushers

Dodge crushers are characterized by a swing jaw fixed at the lower position.
16
Universal crushers are characterized by a swing jaw fixed at the intermediate

position.

2.3.4 Gyratory crushers

Gyratory crushers provide either primary or secondary crushing of extracted

materials in ore or mine processing plants. They are quite similar to jaw crushers,

in that they both have conical heads and concave surfaces that are typically lined

with manganese steel. However, instead using rotational movement, as jaw

crushers do, gyratory crushers achieve their ends using eccentric, or off-center,

motion.

2.3.5 Cone crushers

Cone crushers are quite a lot like gyratory crushers, and are also used in mining,

though they are more commonly used for secondary crushing only. They work best

with mid-hard to above mid-hard ore and rocks. Their crushing chamber is also

less steep than that of the gyratory crusher. Cone crushers work by squeezing

materials between their bowl liner and mantle, which is mounted on an

eccentrically-gyrating spindle. Here, they descend as they are continually broken,

until they are small enough to fall through a narrow opening at the bottom of the

crusher.

Cone crushers can be divided into four groups: compound cone crushers, also

called VSC series cone crushers, Symons cone crushers, or spring cone crushers,
17
single cylinder hydraulic cone crushers, and multi-cylinder hydraulic cone

crushers.

2.4 Impactors

Impactors are quite like crushers, except that they reduce materials differently.

Instead of crushing, which uses pressure generated by two opposing forces, they

use impaction, a process that transmits force via collision. To carry out impaction,

impactors, or impact crushers, contain the material to be crushed inside a cage,

with which they facilitate collisions. As the material gets smaller, it falls out of

openings on the bottom, side, or end of the cage.

Along with the above common pulverizer types are those types that are less

common, but more specialized, such as gyratory crushers, cone crushers, MPS

mills, and bowl mills.

2.5 Equipment Components

Pulverizer machines may have different components depending on their kind.

However, in general, they work using an entry feed, a rotating element (e.g.

rotating cylinder), a crushing element (e.g. steel balls), and an exit feed. Some

pulverizers also have temperature control and air flow components (air precleaner,

air compressors, etc.) that help dry newly crushed material.

To promote safety, they frequently feature accessories like automatic shut-off

programming, shields, sensors, and guardrails.

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2.6 Process of pulverization

The application of an external force causes a particle to elastically deform and

cracks occur at points where the stress limit of the particle is exceeded. It is

thought that the particle is destroyed by the propagation of cracks, completing

pulverization (Davies et al., 2018).

In surface grinding, small pieces separate from a particle surface, gradually

forming a large number of fine particles. The particle sizes during grinding often

follow a bimodal distribution. In friction grinding, this surface grinding is

dominant (Davies et al., 2018).

In the case of volume grinding, crushing occurs not at the particle surface but in

the whole part. The particle is broken up into several pieces, and this process

continues until the particle gradually turns into fine particles. Volume grinding is

dominant in compression pulverization and impact pulverization (Davies et al.,

2018).

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2.7 Mechanism of pulverization

The external force applied to particles can be roughly divided into four types,

“compression”, “impact”, “shear”, and “friction”. The actual pulverization

mechanism is complicated. Instead of a single type of external force, several types

may act on a particle at the same time (Kehinde et al., 2017).

In addition, the process is affected in a complicated way by the physical properties

of the pulverized material, the pulverization environment, etc. Therefore, it is

difficult to clearly explain the pulverization process (Kehinde et al., 2017).

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2.8 Design and Customization

When helping you select a pulverizer or when designing a custom pulverizer for

you, pulveriser suppliers consider factors like feed quantity, the breaking behavior

of the material you will be sending through the feed, its initial texture (coarse, fine,

etc.), its level of abrasion resistance, its initial hardness, its initial cleanliness (any

contaminants it may carry), and the required finished texture and fineness of the

material you are grinding.

Based on these factors, pulverizer manufacturers can decide on the right pulverizer

configuration for you, whether your pulverizer should run continuously or in

21
batches, whether or not your pulverizer requires an airflow component, the right

pulverizer speed, and what grinding tools are best for you.

2.9 Safety and Compliance Standards

If used or manufactured improperly, pulverizers can be very dangerous machines.

After all, they are not called crush machines for nothing! To keep workers safe, a

number of standards organizations have put out safety and compliance standards.

First, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has created a

number of guidelines by which pulverizer users working in the United States must

comply. These guidelines cover practices in the workplace that could potentially

put workers in danger and the practices that will decrease that danger. Other

American organizations that put out safety and compliance standards related to

pulverizers include ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and ASME

(American Society of Mechanical Engineers). In addition, many industries offer

guidelines or require compliance with guidelines put out by organizations like the

above. To find out what may be best for your pulverizer, talk to your industry

leaders.

2.10 Pulveriser utilization in Nigeria

These machines were originally designed and manufactured in Britain and the

United States of America in the early 1930’s (Lynch and Rowland, 2005). They

were brought into Nigeria by the tin mining companies in Jos and were copied by
22
local artisans. Since then, there have been no significant improvements in their

design or method of operation. The lack of innovation in the areas of design and

operating principles of mills has constituted the greatest hindrance facing the

growth of solid minerals and grains processing industries in Nigeria. Although it is

known that highly efficient, economical and fast speed models of hammer mills

and pulveriser are being utilized in the chemical, powder, nuclear and food or grain

processing industries, a recent search on the internet revealed that there is no single

drawing of any type, model or prototype available on the web. This implies that

manufacturers of this equipment regard their designs as proprietary. Moreover,

there are no published articles describing the working principles of these new

designs. Thus, a successful growth and development of the solid minerals and

grains processing sector of the Nigerian economy would depend largely on the

design and fabrication of indigenous machines and equipment [Spangenberg,

2022]. These would be machines and equipment whose technology, maintenance,

replacement, upgrading, efficiency and reliability are well understood and

undertaken locally without the need for minimal contribution from any foreign

expert or technology. This paper reports on the design and construction of a

hammer mill with end suction lift capability and hopes that the commercialization

and widespread application of the device will contribute significantly to the growth

of the grains processing industries in Nigeria.

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All these aspects need to be taken into account. Therefore, the general design was

based on the process of allowing a strong and durable metallic object inform of

hammers to beat any material that obstruct its way during operation, thereby

resulting into breakage of the material which can also be referred to as size

reduction in operation. This usually occurs in an enclosed chamber called the

crushing chamber. From which it falls through a sieve located directly under the

crushing chamber which is then transported with the aid of a suction compressor

fan which will help to transport the crushed grains into a storage unit. The physical

and mechanical properties of the mineral to be crushed were studied as this would

help immensely in the design of various components of the rotor. The engineering

properties and some other parameters are the main factors considered before design

of the machine.

2.11 Empirical Review

Many researchers have developed hammer mills which can be adopted for milling

dry plantain pulps in a plantain flour production and packaging plant. Nasir (2005)

developed a hammer mill from locally available materials for grinding dry farm

produce, which had a crushing efficiency of 96% and a crushing capacity of 31

kg/hr. Ebunilo et al. (2010) developed a hammer mill with end-suction lift

capability for processing grains and minerals. Jibrin et al. (2013) developed a

hammer mill for crushing crop residues for the purpose of animal feed. Ogedengbe
24
and Abadariki (2014) developed a hammer mill for pulverizing animal bone into

bone-meal, which was able to pulverize at an average rate of 4.68 g/s. Adekomaya

and Samuel (2014) developed a petrol-powered hammer mill for small scale

industries and rural farmers in Nigeria, with a crushing efficiency of 94%. Ajaka

and Adesina (2014) developed a laboratory size hammer mill from locally

available materials for crushing minerals whose principle of operation can

perfectly work for pulverizing dry plantain pulps. Adetola and Oyejide (2015)

developed a hammer mill, with 86.9% crushing efficiency, for pulverizing cow

bone which was incorporated with safety hollow for housing hard foreign materials

that are different from bones. Mohamed et al. (2015) developed a hammer mill for

crushing and pulverizing grains, rice straw, cotton straw and other materials, with a

crushing efficiency of 94.7%. Moreover, Hadi et al. (2017) developed an improved

hammer mill by redesigning the beaters, milling chamber shape and the shaft. The

shaft was redesigned to allow incorporation of variable speed gasoline engine as a

replacement for electric motor and an average crushing efficiency of 92.47% was

obtained. Hence, the design and principle of operation of the machines developed

by these aforementioned researchers as well as the outcomes of their studies were

very helpful in developing a pulverizer for the plantain processing plant. Despite

the successes recorded by these aforementioned researchers, it is still necessary to

develop a unit, using locally available materials (for easy maintenance and cost-
25
effectiveness), which will be able to pulverize dried plantain pulp, sieve it and then

convey it to the next processing stage in a plantain flour production and packaging

plant.

26