Agglomeration of dried Ilex paraguariensis for consumption purposes

English. Nowadays, many products need to be transported long distances. The amount of material is in many cases limited by volume, especially if we take into account transport by sea. This way ready products or by- products for beverages industry are imported from A sia, Africa or Southern America. The main streams s eem to be tea and coffee, but there are other herbs. Such material is dried Ilex paraguariensis, which is use d for brewing a special type of tea called Yerba Mate. Main count ries, responsible for production are located in Sou thern America (Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil). Different than for coffee, the whole processing must be made on the place of cultivation. For transportation for long d istances, densification of material seems to be a r easonable way to lower the cost of this operation. This paper pre sents a possibility of pressure agglomeration of Il ex paraguariensis for consumption. The impact of the a gglomeration process has been analysed on the quali ties of the drought product. The physical characteristics o f the raw material have been determined, such as th e grain size distribution and moisture content. Agglomeration te sts were performed using different pressures and th e study was conducted about absolute and envelope density, porosity and the Brazilian test to check the compre ssive strength of the pellets. As research material 4 ble nds available in the marked were used. The results presented in the paper show that there is a possibility of produ ction of high quality granulates made from Ilex par aguariensis. What should be expected, the highest envelope densi ty was obtained for the highest formation pressure. What needs to be mentioned, the pressure needed to achie ve a good quality granule was even two times higher than in the case of other herbal materials. This was mainly due to stiff and tough structure of the material. Nevertheless, the results show that agglomeration of dried Yerba Mate can be an interesting form for long distance transportation.

English. Yerba Mate, granulation, Brazilian test, density, porosity

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1593-1598