摘要
Babassu （Orbignya speciosa） is a large-sized Brazilian palm with smooth, oblong ellipsoidal fruits, brown in color when mature. The babassu nut is approximately 8 to 15 cm long and 5 to 7 cm wide, with a slightly oval shape. The main commercial product extracted from babassu is the oil extracted from the kernels which represents 7% of the total weight of the fruit. The babassu nut nowadays is collected and shelled manually by women, this representing a problem of social order in the North/Northeastern region of Brazil. The objective of the present research was to develop an adequate shelling process for the nut, adding value to the raw material and taking better advantage of each of its components： epicarp, mesocarp, endocarp and the kernel itself, thus obtaining the shelled nut, composed of the endocarp and seed. The raw material had been dried by heat treatment; the epicarp and mesocarp were extracted using abrasive shelling equipment. The best position to cut the babassu nut was studied, in order to remove the kernel. The focus of the design was a simple, cheap process, easy to handle and agile to use, allowing the nuts to be cut with safety. The equipments were built based on the data which characterized the babassu nut, giving priority to the cost, adequacy for the region, ease in handling and safety. Considering a single work shift, a yield of 426.54% was obtained for the ＂nut cutter＂ equipment in relation to the productivity of the ＂nut-cracking women＂.
