ENERGY EFFICIENT EXTRUDER FOR FOOD PROCESSING

Abstract

The relevance of improving equipment for thermoplastic extrusion of food raw materials is based, on the one hand, on the high efficiency of this technological process, and on the other hand, its very low energy efficiency, which prevents the widespread use of single-screw extruders, which are quite simple in design and not expensive to operate. The hypothesis about the possibility of replacing a screw working body in an autogenous extruder with a screw one and using a more energy-saving method for heating the processed raw materials than in existing equipment can be specified at the first stage of research by theoretical justification of the design and technological scheme of an energy-efficient thermal vacuum extruder. The paper presents a rationale for the modernization of the extruder based on the use of one of the most energy-efficient methods of obtaining heat - dielectric microwave heating of processed food raw materials.