City college develops Marigold Petal Separating Machine

 

 

 

Normally, we garland or offer flowers to almighty while worshiping. After 24 hours they are removed and thrown. It is called Nirmalya ( waste generated out of flowers, garland offered to the deity by the people). In the process of throwing the flowers’ waste is not segregated and take a form of filth that smell very bad. City college has come up with a solution that can become a part of waste management of flowers. K D K College of Engineering has developed a machine that automatically does the segregation. The machine can separate petals and seed of the Marigold Flower, thereby, paving the way for efficient management of flower waste in India.

 

The importance of this much-sought effort can be understood from the fact that in India about 20 Crore Kilogram of flowers is offered daily to the deities. This enormous waste, when reaches the water bodies, landfill areas, pollutes the sources; thereby affecting aquatic life, human health, groundwater, etc adversely. The quantity of said waste is also posing difficulties in its management and disposal. The said machine can be a great help in managing the flower waste. Explaining the idea, Team, Consultancy Cell of KDK College of Engineering told ‘The Hitavada’, “The existing solution to manage such waste (nirmalya) in India is imparted by Ecomet Solutions Pvt Ltd., Mumbai and Green Tree Solutions, Nagpur. An Earthling machine is used to crush all the waste flowers and it is further allowed to decompose to obtain compost. During the process, it was observed that marigold flower, consisting of seed, also gets crushed along with petals and extracts oil that creates the lump of crushed flowers (soiled waste). These lumps find the path onto the working parts of the machine and jam it.”

 

This problem was discussed with the Team, Consultancy Cell of KDK College of Engineering, Nagpur who took the responsibility to develop a new machine to separate petals from the seed of a marigold flower. The said machine consists of structure, upper idlers pulleys, lower live pulleys, belt, geared dc motors, cutter, cutter motor, casing, chute for separating seeds of the flower. The developed machine is capable of separating petals from the seed of a marigold flower at a rate of 5 Kg. per hour. The best part of the machine is that it is portable and can be operated by an unskilled operator. Working is also very simple, in which a manually marigold flower is inserted between the belts running over pulleys. When it is gripped, it is conveyed forward towards the cutter. The cutter is rotating at 7,000 rpm with the help of the cutter motor. The moment petals touch blades of the cutter are separated. Rajendra Mulak, Secretary of the College; Principal Dr D P Singh, Vice Principal Dr A M Badar, Dr C C Handa, Professor and Head, Department of Mechanical Engineering have congratulated the Team, Consultancy Cell, K.D.K.College of Engineering, Nagpur for this achievement.