Influence of grinding and pelleting parameters on granulation and physical characteristics of pelleted animal feed | Uticaj parametara mlevenja i peletiranja na granulaciju i fizičke karakteristike peletirane hrane za životinje

In modern poultry and swine breeding, animal feed is rarely used in powder form but mainly pelleted after mixing of different ingredients. During pelleting process, granulation of the feed is compromised, i.e. coarse particles are almost completely destroyed and the content of fine particles is strongly increased. This doctoral thesis investigated the impact of changes in selected grinding and pelleting parameters on granulation of particles after pelleting. The goal was to achieve the quantity of coarse particles in pellets to be as high as possible, which is important in poultry nutrition. Another goal was to determine the combination of parameters that will increase, as much as possible, the content of particles medium in size and reduce the share of the smallest particles, which is important in swine nutrition. At the same time quality of the pellets must not be significantly degraded and energy consumption of pellet press should be as low as possible. Independent pelleting parameters were corn granulation after grinding, the distance (gap) between the rollers and the die of pellet presses (roller-die gap), the thickness of the pellet press die (die thickness) and the water content of pelleted material. The study was divided in two stages. In the first stage the corn was ground using a hammer mill and in the second stage, roller mill was used. Three different granulations were produced on both mills. Coarseness of the ground material increased from the finest material produced using the hammer mill to the coarsest material obtained at the roller mill. In the first stage, three different granulations produced at the hammer mill were pelleted in combination with three different roller-die gaps (0.30, 1.15 and 2.00 mm) and three different water contents of material (14.5%, 16.0% and 17.5%). In the second stage three different granulations produced at the roller mill were pelleted in combination with three different die thicknesses (24, 30 and 36 mm) and three different water content of material (14.5%, 16.0% and 17.5%). Thus, three parameters were varied at three levels in both stages and experiments were designed according to Box-Behnken design. Depended variables (responses) were: temperature of the pellet press die, specific energy consumption of pellet press, dust content in pellets, degree of starch gelatinization, particle size of the material after pelleting. For each of the responses, a second order polynomial model was defined and used for optimization of the pelleting process. It was determined that particle size distribution of material with similar geometric mean diameter, obtained with hammer mill and roller mill, is significantly different from each other. Hammer mill produced higher quantity of the coarsest and the finest particles comparing to roller mill. Energy consumption of roller mill for grinding to similar particle size distribution or similar geometric mean diameter is lower compared to hammer mill. Even though it was determined that secondary grinding of particles during pelleting is inevitable, certain combinations of pelleting parameters may contribute to significant preservation of large particles and to reduction of quantity of small particles. Results of optimization in the first stage indicated that for the production of pelleted poultry feed, when certain amount of coarse particles should be preserved, it is necessary to apply coarse grinding on hammer mill, with the roller-die gap of 2 mm and with material water content of 17.5%. In the second stage it was determined that it is necessary to use die with thickness of 30 mm, coarsest granulation at the roller mill and material water content of 17.5%. In the production of pelleted poultry feed it is better to use a hammer mill since it was found that the particles obtained on hammer mill are more resistant to secondary grinding than the particles obtained with the roller mill. Roller-die gap increase is not desirable during pelleting of swine feed because it increases secondary grinding, and thus the proportion of the smallest particles. Similar effect has an increase of the die thickness. In the first stage of the study, the results of the optimization showed that the largest quantity of medium-sized particles (630 – 1600 μm), and the lowest quantity of the smallest particles (< 125 μm), were achieved with the finest grinding on the hammer mill. At the same time water content of 17.5% should be applied, while the roller-die gap should be close to 0.30 mm. In the second stage of the study, the largest quantity of medium-sized particles, and the lowest quantity of the smallest particles, was achieved with the finest grinding on the roller mill. According to the optimization results, the water content should be set to 17.5%, while die thickness should approx. 28 mm. With the proposed optimal parameters, satisfactory pellet quality was achieved, and energy consumption of the pellet presses was at an acceptable level.