International Research Journal of Education and Technology

Manual processing of pomegranates consists of cutting the fruit by knife into pieces and then separation of arils by hand tends to be highly labour intensive, time consuming and unhygienic. The present investigation was undertaken to develop pomegranate aril remover. The physical and engineering properties of pomegranate fruit and aril were determined for design of various parts of aril remover. The hand operated pomegranate aril remover were designed, tested and were found suitable for aril removal. The hand operated pomegranate aril remover consisted of a operating handle, spring loaded reciprocating arms, semi circular solid hitting discs or heads, movable fruit holding platform, aril collecting chutes, aril collecting tray and frame. The arrangement was made for the semi circular solid hitting head to move in reciprocating motion to hit the inverted halved fruit and remove the arils. The hand operated pomegranate aril remover was evaluated at hitting height (0 to 2 cm). The hand operated pomegranate aril remover were compared with manual aril removal method.

Keywords: Pomegranate processing, Aril removal, Manual labour, Engineering design, Reciprocating motion.