GRINDING PROCESS OF THE WHEAT KERNEL WITH A NEW DESIGNED MICROMILL

Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops in the world with various end-uses: food (bread, cakes, cookies and pasta), animal feed, raw material for beer and whisky, biodegradable plastic (from wheat starch). In all these technologies, grinding has great importance and is very energy consuming. The motivation to measure energy requirements for size reduction at specified roller mill settings, led to the development of instrumented roller mills of various designs. For this research, was used a new designed micromill which can perform in the grinding process of the wheat and of the middling too, in the same conditions as in the milling industry. The adjustment of the roller characteristics can be done for each type of milling product (grain, semolina, bran). The grains are in the same time under the compression and the shearing efforts. The energy consumption is represented by one single value for one pair of rollers. This single value is significant for the comparative appreciation regarding the energy consumption in the milling proces, for different wheat cultivars or different batches, but also for different characteristics of the  rollers. The micromill is designed to determine the grinding resistance of the cereals.The method has the same accuracy as the classical one and it has the advantage to be quicker and less demanding as work volume. The new designed equipment can be used in laboratory for the benefice of students as well in the milling industry.