Walnut processing equipment. Types and characteristics
To organize a large process of walnut processing, special equipment is indispensable. At each of its stages, it is necessary to use various auxiliary equipment, which is designed to facilitate and accelerate each of them.
Equipment for processing walnuts is divided into groups such as: harvesting equipment, washing and cleaning, walnut drying equipment, sorting (calibration), nutcrackers, equipment for separating shell from kernel, complex industrial walnut processing lines.
Let’s start looking through the types of these equipment.
Harvesting equipment
Harvesting — is a first stage in nut processing. Harvesting can become an laborious process, but its duration and difficulty depends on the pace of work and methods of nuts collection. Before harvesting, it is not recommended to knock off from the trees walnut in green pericarp. The next year it can bring much less walnuts than years earlier.
Walnut growers and owners of large plantations mostly harvest nuts using a harvesting machine. This special equipment is called walnut tree shaker.The tree shaker helps to quickly shaking walnuts from trees.The tree shaker facilitates the process of harvesting from any trees, saves energy, significantly reduces the time it takes to perform this difficult work and also prevents the appearance of broken branches in trees.
If you have no plantations, you can use another, more versatile, effective, fairly fast and high-quality method – a roll for collecting nuts.
A roll for picking nuts – is a simple design, but very useful device. Its working part is made of steel rods forming an empty space, creating a kind of container for nuts collected from the ground.
A roll for picking nuts has several advantages and functions:
- does not require handling skills to use it;
- it has the strength of a steel structure, which increases the service life;
- it will save your strength, get rid of constant bends and squats during harvesting.
Rolls, suggested on our website, can be used for collecting walnuts, hazelnuts, for apple picking and others. With these tools, harvesting becomes more efficient!
Equipment for washing and cleaning
An equally important step in the processing of walnuts is to clean them from green pericarp. At medium and large enterprises you need to save time and carry out this procedure as quickly as possible, accelerating the process of processing and harvesting walnuts. A ripe nut cannot be in a green peel for a long time, even if it has already turned black and cracked. The iodine contained in it can be eaten into the shell and with prolonged exposure to penetrate the core, which will cause blackening and damage to the kernel. When a walnut in a green peel needs to be eliminated, then you can not do without special equipment for separating the peel from the fruit.For quick and high-quality disposal of green pericarp, it is best to use a walnut cleaner from green peels.
Walnut peel cleaner is an equipment specially designed for gentle and quick cleaning of walnuts from green peel in industrial or business conditions.
The cleaner will quickly, efficiently and carefully remove the green peel from the young and fully ripened walnut, whose pericarp is already detached from the fruit. At the same time, it will leave the whole shell without chips and cracks, and it will also peel the walnut from iodine and other husks.
The main advantage of the cleaner is the acceleration of the walnut cleaning process (depending on the degree of maturity of the walnut it can be processed up to 500 kg/h).
Walnut drying equipment
For walnut drying, special equipment is also provided. Standard walnut drying machine used for peeled nuts looks like a hopper with volume of nearly 4700 liters and is capable of drying 3 tons of nuts within 12-24 hours, depending on the drying temperature setted.
In this equipment the drying process is fully automated. To start working you must set the temperature, indicate the drying time and the speed of the revolutions of the spiral, which ensures uniform distribution of warm air.
It is also possible to work in manual mode.
Key features of drying equipment look like:
Autonomy. Just set the input data and the entire drying process will be performed flawlessly.
Compact design. The walnut dryer is easy to transport and install. The preparation process for work does not take much time. Also, an additional “machine legs” adjustable in height.
Profitability. An effective energy-saving system runes by using a shaft in the form of a spiral installed in the center of the hopper, while rotating, the spiral sets the walnuts in motion. As a result of which hot air under high pressure has access to each walnut. This significantly reduces the time and energy for heating the entire batch of walnuts.
Walnut drying equipment can significantly save money in models with both electric heating and using a diesel generator.
Walnut calibration equipment
The next step in walnut processing is sorting. Calibration of whole nut, sorting and aspiration of processed nut are necessary and important in the first place to increase the cost of nuts for sale on the market. Also, nuts can be calibrated to adjust the equipment to a specific size of nut to get whole kernel after process finished.After the walnut is harvested and cleaned of green pericarp the whole walnut is fed into calibration.
During home processing, walnut calibration in 95% of cases is carried out manually. The enterprises use special calibration equipment. They are designed to sort the nut by size, distributing the batches into fractions for further high-quality splitting.
Spărgătoare de nuci
This category includes mechanical nutcrackers, electric nutcrackers, industrial nutcrackers.
Mechanical crackers are tools for productive cracking of nuts without the usage of industrial engines and without the expenditures for the electricity. They are actively used both in the household and in production for cracking walnuts, hazelnuts and other varieties of nuts.As a result, the output is the highest percentage of the whole kernel. All mechanical nutcrackers are brought into operation as a result of exposure through a manual lever, while the nuts are cracked with high preservation of the whole kernel.
The main advantage of mechanical nutcrackers is the cracking of walnuts and hazelnuts without the cost of electricity, renting a room and hiring workers. The main minus is that using these nutcrackers the processed volumes will not be large. Mechanical nutcrackers mainly uses in households.
The mechanical ones include the models of the Butterfly, Universal, Nutcracker, etc.
Electric nutcrackers are equipment for cracking walnuts on a semi-industrial scale, as well as in households. The main advantage of these nutcrackers is their high productivity per unit of time. It cracks nuts really fast but the percentage of whole kernel is lower than with mechanical nutcracker in the result. Electric crackers can crack from 50 to 200 kg of walnut per hour, depending on the model. With such good performance characteristics, this particular type of nutcracker is optimal choice for medium-sized large enterprises. In addition to high productivity, electric nutcrackers save time on processing raw materials.
Electric nutcrackers can also be used for cracking hazelnuts, thanks to the unique principle of operation and convenient adjustment, allowing you to work with nuts of different varieties, quality and caliber.
Industrial nutcrackers are designed for the quickest and highest quality cracking of walnuts with maximum preservation of the whole kernel or the so-called “butterfly”. Industrial walnut cracker allows processing large volumes of walnut with a minimum of manual work in a short period of time.
Equipment for separating shell from kernel
After the cracking, nut kernel need to be separated from shell. For this step special equipment is needed.
Except calibrator it is possible to distinguish such equipment as vibro sieve (vibrating screen). It is designed to sort already peeled walnuts into fractions (halves, quarters, eighths crumbs).
Vibrating screen with aspiration is used for high-quality and quick sorting a large volumes of walnut.
The main principle of vibrating screen operation is next: a walnut is poured into the hopper, after which sieves with holes of different sizes are fed with the help of vibro feeder. While vibrating, the walnut falls into the hole. At the same time, small particles, debris and shells are blown by a stream of air into a separate capsule.
Vibrating screen consist of:
- hopper with sides on which the vibrator is placed;
- sieve with holes of different sizes;
- output bins for 5 sizes fractions.
The vibrating screen has a lot of advantages:
- saving time for doing next steps;
- has optimal productivity;
- constant supply of walnut from the hopper without manual intervention is provided;
- reduces labor costs;
- sorting by fraction increases the cost of the core in the market;
- provided with warranty and after-sales service.
Also we can talk about conveyor belts and bulkhead tables that are used for efficient and high-quality sorting and cleaning of nuts. They provide convenience and comfort of work, accelerate the process of sorting and peeling nuts, reduce the percentage of rejects and, as a result, increase the final cost of the kernel.
Industrial walnut processing lines
The walnut processing line is a large-sized and complex equipment consisting of the necessary tools for the high-quality completion of the full walnut processing cycle. The purpose of the installation of this equipment is to optimize the workflow, facilitate the work of the pickers, speed up the process of processing the nut and, as a result, obtain a good indicator of the whole kernel.
This type of equipment can always be customized to meet the needs of production, respectively – reinforcing the line or equipping it with less equipment.
All of the above types of equipment are equally effective and necessary at each stage of the processing cycle. It can be used both for processing in households and for processing large batches of nuts at manufacturing enterprises. As a result, with its usage it is possible to obtain a better yield of the core to increase its value in the market. Here, on our website, you can find both equipment for domestic and industrial walnut processing.