Substantial development in the African fish industry is being keenly challenged not only by the availability of fish feed ingredients or viable seeds but also by the high cost of imported floating feeds and processing machines required for production of the feeds. The emergence of adulterated extruded fish feeds has also led to the closure of some fish farms that fall victims. Thus, a single screw fish feed extruder was designed and fabricated with locally available and affordable engineering materials. The machines performance was evaluated with constant feed moisture, constant feed rate, and constant screw speed, while the multi-channel dies were varied for 2, 4, 6, and 8 mm. The product moisture contents ranged from 7.78 8.72%, the product temperature 105 135oC, buck density 0.92 1.07 g/ml, expansion ratio 20.50 38.83%, throughput 17.75 24.12 g/mins, percentage recovery 74.00 83.33%, floatability 78.67 92.11%, efficiency of the machine 70.67 90.67% and specific mechanical energy 19.09 24.47 KJ/Kg. The performance evaluation of the machine was satisfactory.
Key words: Floating Fish Feed, Single Screw Extruder, Fish, Design, Fabrication
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