Manufacturing and Performance Evaluation of Aloe Vera Gel Extraction Machine

The present research aims to mechanically separate the gel from Aloe vera plants. Theoretical analysis was conducted to design a simple gel-extracting machine from local material taking into consideration its effectiveness. The machine performance was evaluated as a function of change in leaf thickness (less than 15, between 15 to 20, more than 20mm) and extracting roller rotational speeds (30, 60, 90 and 120 rpm) and evaluated in terms of machine output, gel recovery, residual gel, expulsion efficiency, specific energy requirements and cost. The designed machine is fabricated with an extraction roller diameter of 150 mm and a 35 mm roller shaft diameter. The optimum machine performance is 105.4 kg/h machine productivity, 56.9% gel recovery, 95.1% expulsion efficiency and 5.5% residual gel with minimum energy requirements of 0.0057 kW.h/kg and 0.0160 Us$/kg production cost obtained at a 60rpm (0.11 m/s) roller speed and leaf thickness ranges from 20 to 25mm.