Development and Performance Evaluation of Irish Potato Peeling Machine

An Irish potato peeling machine was developed for use at small-scale/household level. Machine performance evaluation was carried out using three locally grown Irish potato varieties namely; Nicola, Bartita and Bawondoya respectively. A 22x3 factorial experiment in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications was used for evaluation where tuber feed rate, shaft speed and variety were the independent variables and peeling efficiency, tuber flesh loss and machine output capacity were the performance indicators. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed the effects of variety on peeling efficiency and feed rate on output capacity as highly significant (P=.01). Also, the interaction of speed and variety on peeling efficiency and the effect of variety on output capacity was significant (P=.05). The interaction of variety and speed at 480 rpm achieved a maximum mean peeling efficiency of 55.6% for Bawondoya. Similarly, at slightly higher speed of 510 rpm, the maximum mean peeling efficiency of 64.6% was achieved for Bartita. Flesh loss value of 0.84% was the least obtained and this was for Bartita while the highest flesh loss of 1.43% was observed for Nicola. At feed rates of 50 g/sec and 60 g/sec; the minimum and maximum output capacities of 31.3 kg/h and 59.2 kg/h were obtained respectively.