Spiral Mandrel Die Design and Process Optimization in Twin-Screw Extrusion of Vegetarian Yuba-Like Films

As a result of the increasing global vegetarian population and the rising demand for animal protein substitution, plant-derived artificial meat products has driven the steady growth of the international market for vegetarian meat products. How to produce high quality vegetarian food using a low cost process is the key to remain competitive in the global market. “Yuba film” is a popular vegetarian food. Nevertheless, the production of Yuba films require tremendous labor work. Despite the “drum heating” process may be employed to prepare the Yuba films, the quality of the films might be strongly influenced by the temperature variation during the process.The production of vegetarian using an extrusion process possess a number of advantages. However, up to the present, the literature on producing the Yuba films using a twin-screw extruder is quite limited. Furthermore, no research has been completed on the design of extrusion die and the optimization of extruding Yuba films using a twin-screw extruder.This proposal aims to develop the technology of producing Yuba films using a twin-screw extruder. The research project will design and fabricate, based on various gradients of the Yuba films, a new blow-film spiral die, using a commercial SPIRALCAD software. After extrusion, the extruded products will be characterized. In addition, the research will also focus on the optimization of the extrusion process by employed an experimental matrix Taguchi design. The factors that affect the extruded products will also be identified. The final goal of this project is to exploit a novel twin-screw extrusion process for the successful manufacture of Yuba films and other vegetarian food with high qualities, so as to promote the overall technology level of the food industries in Taiwan.

Project ID:PB10811-0238
External Project ID:MOST108-2622-E182-005-CC2