DEVELOPMENT OF A SEMI-AUTOMATED YOUNG COCONUT WATER EXTRACTOR

Abstract

Young coconut water or commonly known as buko juice has a lot of benefits to bring to us such as refreshments to our thirst, rehydration, and medical treatment to illness such as gastroenteritis, diarrhea and etc. This applied research aims to produce a machine which will extract the water inside the coconut fruit in a semi-automated way and defying the old way of firstly cutting the eye of the coconut and manually to pour the water out from the fruit to the water container. This research also aims to produce a machine that will extract water from young green coconut which is away from dirt and contamination. So, we as a mechanical engineering student design an advance way of extracting the water from the said fruit. The machine is semi-automated because only the injection/piercing process and extraction process are automated while setting up of the coconut fruit to the machine will be done manually.The parts of the machine are the following: injector, pneumatic cylinder, compressor, table and frame, vacuum pump, vacuum vessel and accessories (hoses and fittings, reservoir, solenoid valve, sensors, switch, mechanical press and etc). All of these parts are absolutely clean to avoid contamination.The whole process goes this way: Firstly, the coconut fruit is set up to the table with its eye portion is aligned to the tip of the injector and the mechanical press holds the fruit which is done manually. Secondly, the injector which is mounted to the pneumatic cylinder is run by the compressor to pierce the coconut fruit while the sensor checks that the tip of the injector is on the surface of the coconut meat and triggers the solenoid valve that the injector reach its maximum length. Thirdly, the vacuum pump runs for the water suction process as the sensor stops the process when there is no water left inside the fruit. Finally, the water collected by the pump goes through a pipe and is stored in the vacuum vessel. The sensor checks the volume limit of the vacuum vessel and drains the water through the reservoir.