Development of a Washing Machine for Paprika

Abstract

The amount of export of paprika has been increased rapidly in recent years. Therefore, its cultivation area has greatly increased in Korea according to current consumer's attraction. Moreover, it becomes one of the major exporting products while it recorded 53 million dollars, in 2009 resulting in 40% of the total vegetables export. Most of the products are exported to Japan, but it is necessary to prolong the quality preservation periods to export paprika to nations like U.S.A. or EU. However, to encourage an export to many countries, washing and disinfection became more important to deal with longer transportation and medical inspection. The non-chemical use is very important due to stronger regulation of safety to agricultural production. Accordingly, this study was performed to determine the optimum conditions and develop a prototype washing machine, hot water washing of paprika. The results were as follows :The working performance of the prototype was 938 kg/hr, and which was 1.5 times higher than the conventional air gun type washing machine. The operation cost of prototype was 30 won/kg, and 56% of the cost was reduced when compared with air gun type washing machine.