Construção e avaliação de um protótipo para despolpar frutos de Acrocomia sp.

Abstract

The exploitation of Brazilian native fruits is a source of income for many families and is related to cultural richness and contributes to the conservation of biodiversity. The fruits of the Acrocomia sp. Palm are known as bocaiuva or macaúba and presents commercial potential as a raw material for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food and biofuel industries. Fruit pulp is considered a source of lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, carotenoids and fibers. The communities process bocaiuva fruits manually and consider pulp production as an opportunity of increasing income in rural areas. One of the major obstacles to increased this demand is the pulp extraction, due to the strong adhesion between the mesocarp and the endocarp. The objective of this study was to design, assembly and evaluate a small equipment for pulping the fruits of Acrocomia aculeata. Information related to manual extraction procedures, as well as assisted by machines, was collected. Based on this information, the concept of extraction machine was proposed from product development tools. The bench equipment was built in three units: processing, secondary and peripheral, which works in intermittent operation. The pulping process is performed by shearing. The prototype reduced the processing time and increased the pulp extraction yield of the fruits, allowing the substitution of handmade pulping by mechanized work. The highest extraction efficiency (81.4%) was for fruits without peel previously dehydrated for 24hs at 70ºC in 75 s. Under this condition, pulp was obtained with characteristic for flour with moisture of 10%, acidity of 1.25% and retention of 57% of carotenoids. The results demonstrated that the previous dehydration of the fruits leaded to a better performance to the mechanized pulping of the mesocarp of bocaiuva and the physical and chemical analyses showed that the prototype was able to extract pulp with quality.