Design، Construction and Evaluation of Henna Leaves Roller Separator with the Aim of Determining the Optimum Moisture for Leaf Separation

Today، in developed countries، using specialized machines for agricultural products processing، is one of the most common ways to reduce the final price of these products. For this purpose، firstly، henna leaf separator was designed in the SolidWorks software and then constructed. In order to evaluate the performance of this prototype، three factors include the speed of rollers at two levels of 1550 and 750 rpm، the distance between the rollers at three levels of 2، 3 and 4 mm، and moisture content at three levels of 14%, 45% and 87% in the form of a factorial design of experiment with three replications was conducted. The success rate in leaf separation was considered as the evaluation index of the machine. Analysis of the results showed that the effect of roller speed، moisture content and rollers distance as well as the dual and triple effect of these factors on the success rate in leaf separation were meaningful. The results showed that the best performance of the roller separator was achieved at the rollers speed of 1550 rpm، distance of 2 mm between the rollers and moisture content of 14%.