Design and Development of Combined Cacao Bean Dehuller-Pulverizer Machine for Cocoa Powder Processing

Cocoa powder is in higher demand due to its application in numerous food products.To meet this demand, there is a need for efficient cocoa powder processing equipment.Hence, this research study seeks to develop a combined cacao bean huller-pulverizer machine for cocoa powder processing and evaluate its machine performance in terms of capacity and efficiency.A Central Composite Design (CCD) with a two-factor experiment was used to evaluate the performance of the developed machine.Results show that the average output capacity and efficiency of the developed combined cacao bean huller-pulverizer machine is about 5.56 kg/h and 83.37%, respectively.The machine was financially feasible based on the results of its financial analysis.Furthermore, the fineness modulus of the output product was compared to a commercialized cocoa powder, and it has no significant difference.This result indicates that the cocoa powder produced by the machine is acceptable.