Development and Innovation of Extractor For Malunggay (Moringa oleifera Lamk)

Abstract

This study aimed to develop and innovate an extractor for malunggay to solve its laborious and tedious processing and for product and by-products development. Particularly, innovation of existing malunggay juice extractor was done and tested in terms of efficiency, capacity, extraction time, losses and power requirement, and its technical and economic viability. The extractor was innovated for extracting malunggay juice and other similar commodities. Testing of innovated extractor was highly significant in terms of extraction time, volume of extracted juice, and percent recovery of juice extracted compared to the manual extraction process. The juice extraction of the malunggay using the innovated extractor showed a capacity of 5.5 kg/hr to almost 19 kg/hr using matured and young leaves and stalks. The mean juice recovery is 62%. The innovated extractor for malunggay has higher efficiency and capacity but has lesser processing time, losses, and power requirement. The malunggay extractor is economically viable and feasible. The extractor could extract juice from malunggay, and its meal could be converted into powder and tea and gain a minimum of ₱62/kg of malunggay. It has a return on investment of 34.11% with a payback period of 2.1 years. The fabrication of the prototype of “Agiseparator,” downsizing of the equipment, technology commercialization, adoption of a backyard planting for malunggay; health impact dissemination, determination of nutrient retention and loss during processing, and development of more products from malunggay are recommended.