Performance Evaluation of a Low Cost Flour Mixer

Flour mixer was developed for efficient mixing of flour with micronutrients or any other material at low levels for enrichment purposes. Main component of mixer is stainless steel screw with fins having a diameter of 65 mm and screw length on shaft is 900 mm rotating at 285 rpm. The mixer was tested for its mixing capacity using wheat flours with different inlet openings. The inlet opening size of 20x20 mm and 10x10 mm of big and small hopper, respectively was found optimum for efficient mixing of premix at 10% level with 90% of main flour. The throughput of the mixer was found to be 200 kg/h at optimum efficiency. Mixing performance of flour mixer was evaluated for its mixing efficiency of two dry ingredients, which were wheat flour and powdered colouring material at 0.50% 0.25% and 0.125%. No significant difference was observed in the colour and flour colour index of control and flour samples mixed using developed flour mixer. It shows that mixing performance of developed flour mixer is optimum and this flour mixer can be used for mixing of materials even at low levels.