Adaptation of Single Screw Extruder for Chips Processing from Local Maize A Case Study: Baraka Chips Factory – Medani, Gezira State, Sudan

Abstract

At the present time, the low level of technological methods used to process local food raw materials in Sudan, specially cereals and grains, makes them not widely used in Sudanese food industry. Recently there are some processed food products from these crops such as canned and boiled foods. The use of extrusion cooking technology for the production of ready-to-eat food products, based on local cereals and grains, gives the possibility of increasing the time of their storage, decreasing the time and energy needed for their preparation and expanding the types of processed high quality food products. Sudanese chips and flakes factories have been importing raw materials for the production of the above mentioned food products, for a long time, from Italy China and Ukraine. This research aimed to make a single screw extruder located in Baraka Chips Factory, Medani, Gezira State, Sudan is eligible to produce chips from local Sudanese maize instead of making them from imported raw materials. This problem was solved using a set of new computer programs (Axum 6, Table Carve 2D and 3D, Mathimatica 4). Using the above mentioned programs with combination with research experimental analysis results, it was possible to adapt a single screw extruder for the production of chips from Sudanese local maize with expansion ratio more than 3 mm/mm, low hardness and less energy consumption, the next parameters of extrusion cooking process should be used: (moister content of the raw material 16%, extruder barrel temperature 100ºC, screw rotation 260 rpm and orifice diameter 2 mm). The experimental checks of these results have been carried out, and it was showed the righteousness of the obtained mathematical modules. Chips from Sudanese local maize has an expansion ratio:4 mm/mm and hardness: 0.1N/m2. It is recommended that further studies should be carried out to evaluate the overall characteristics of the produced chips, and comparing them with those chips that produced from imported raw materials.