A tomato seed extractor having a capacity of 180 kg of fruits per hour has been fabricated and evaluated at the Department of Agricultural Processing, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. The unit consisted of a fruit squeezing chamber, and a seed separation unit. In the fruit squeezing chamber, the tomato fruits were pressed and squeezed by a rotating screw auger and discharged to the seed separation chamber. The studs present in the rotating shaft in the seed separation chamber opened the squeezed fruit and nozzles at the top sprayed water and washed the seed from the fruit flesh. Wash water carried the seed through the perforated cover and collected them in a removable perforated tank placed inside the main tank. The fruit flesh, after separation of seed, was collected at the end of the seed separation chamber. The fruit flesh collected could then be further processed to any desired value added product. The unit had a seed extraction efficiency of 98.8 . As compared to manualmethod of seed extraction, the unit recorded 96.6 saving in time and 89.6 saving in cost. The cost of the unit is only about $ 190.
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