Journal of Food Engineering 39 (1999) 359368

Design of a cryogenic grinding system for spices

K.K. Singh a,*, T.K. Goswami b
a

Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Berasia Road, Nabibagh, Bhopal 462 038, India b Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India Received 3 April 1998; accepted 1 December 1998

Abstract The fat content of spices poses problems of temperature rise and sieve clogging during grinding. Due to this temperature rise, spices lose a signicant fraction of their volatile oil or avouring components. Therefore, a cryogenic grinding system was designed and developed to cool the spices before feeding to the grinder and also maintain the cryogenic temperature in the grinding zone. The main components of the cryogenic grinding system are a precooler and grinder. The precooler consists of a screw conveyor assembly, a compressor, a liquid nitrogen dewar and power transmission unit. The design considerations, calculations and development of the precooler have been discussed in the paper. A commercially available grinder was adopted for this purpose. The tests conducted on grinding of cumin seed revealed that it could be successfully ground below the temperature of 70C. Above this temperature, sieve clogging took place. The increase in grinding temperature from160C to 70C resulted in a signicant increase in particle size of the product and specic energy consumption in grinding. A variation in volatile oil content was obtained in the range of 3.303.26 ml/100 g with increasing temperature from 160C to 70C, but this variation was found to be non-signicant at 5% level. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Grinding of spices is an age-old technique like grinding of other food materials. The main aim of spice grinding is to obtain smaller particle size with good product quality in terms of avour and colour. In the normal grinding process, heat is generated when energy is used to fracture a particle into a smaller size. This generated heat usually is detrimental to the product and results in some loss of avour and quality. The fat in spices generally poses extra problems and is an important consideration in grinding. During grinding, the temperature of the product rises to a level in the range of 4295C (Pruthi & Misra, 1963), which varies with the oil and moisture content of the spices, but spices lose a signicant fraction of their volatile oil or avouring components due to this temperature rise. The losses of volatile oil for dierent spices have been reported to be in the tune of 37% for nutmeg, 14% for mace, 17% for cinnamon and 17% for oregano (Andres, 1976). The loss of volatile oil during grinding of caraway seed has been reported to be 32% with an increase in grinding temperature from 17C to 45C (Wolf & Pahl, 1990).
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-0755-730983; fax: +91-755734016; e-mail: kksingh@ciae.mp.nic.in

During grinding of black pepper in a kitchen grinder, the application of liquid nitrogen resulted in a 26% increase in volatile oil at the product temperature of 20C in comparison to ambient grinding at the product temperature of 62C (Murthy, Krishnamurthy, Ramesh & Srinivasa Rao, 1996). The temperature rise of the product can be minimized to some extent by circulating cold air or water around the grinder. But this technique is not sucient to signicantly reduce the temperature rise of the product. The loss of volatile oil can be signicantly reduced by a cryogenic grinding technique (Pruthi, 1980). Liquid nitrogen at 195.6C provides the refrigeration needed to precool the spices and maintain the desired low temperature by absorbing the heat generated during the grinding operation. In addition to maintaining the low temperature, vaporization of the liquid nitrogen to the gaseous state, in eect, creates an inert and dry atmosphere for additional protection of spice quality. Precooling of the raw spice and the continuous low temperature maintained within the mill reduces the loss of volatile oils and moisture thereby retaining most of the avour strength per unit mass of spice. The extremely low temperature in the grinder solidies oils so that the spices become embrittled; they crumble easily permitting grinding to a ner and more

0260-8774/99/$ see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 2 6 0 - 8 7 7 4 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 1 7 2 - 1

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consistent size. Thus considerably smaller particle size can be obtained under cryogenic conditions. The nely ground spices spread their avour uniformly throughout the product body in which they are used, thereby reducing the problem of large specks appearing in the food products. With cryogenic grinding, the temperature of the products can be as low as 195.6C. But such a low temperature is not required for all spices. In practice, it is regulated anywhere from 195.6C to few degrees below ambient temperatures (Russo, 1976). The temperature to be used is determined by parameters, viz., the nal product size, colour required etc. of the product. For removing the required heat from a particle prior to its feeding into the grinder, cryogenic precoolers are used. The cryogenic precoolers can be combined with impact, attrition, or air swept mills. It is ensured that the particle during grinding is at or below its brittle point. Provisions are made to control the precooler temperature and feed rate to the mill. From the aforesaid statements, there seems enough justication for cryogenic grinding of spices in order to obtain high quality products. Therefore, a cryogenic grinding system was designed, developed and tested for cumin seed. 2. Design and development The cryogenic grinding system consists of two main units, namely precooling unit and grinding unit. 2.1. Precooling unit The cryogenic precooler is a cooling device made up of a screw conveyor enclosed in a properly insulated barrel and a system to introduce liquid nitrogen into the barrel, thereby providing refrigeration (liquid and cold gas) within the system. The function of the cryogenic precooler is to remove the heat from the material before it enters the grinder. The particle temperature must be low enough to absorb the heat generated in the grinder and still fracture. Cryogenic precoolers, therefore, must have the ability to reduce the temperature of the seed below its brittle point as well as the freezing point of its oil, before it enters the grinder. There must be provision to control the temperature of the precooler and the feed rate to the grinder (Venetucci, 1980) for the obvious purpose of controlling the grinding process. Consumption of liquid nitrogen and the operating cost are important considerations and matters of concern for a cryogenic precooling system. The liquid nitrogen losses can be minimized to a great extent by proper consideration of the design and insulation of the precooler. The precooling unit consists of a screw conveyor assembly, an air compressor, a liquid nitrogen

(LN2 ) dewar, a power transmission arrangement and control panels. The design, development and introduction of the precooling unit was to prevent the material from being heated up during grinding. The unit would precool the material before the actual starting of the grinding operation. This would minimise the loss of quality of the nal powdered material. The precooling unit was designed and developed to match with an available laboratory grinder that could withstand low temperature operations. The details of design and development of the precooling unit are presented below. 2.1.1. Engineering considerations The main engineering considerations (Wagner, 1972) which can be adopted in the design and development of a cryogenic precooler are: 1. Retention time of the seed in the liquid nitrogen and gaseous zone should be accurately proportioned so that the available refrigeration could be utilised at its optimum level. 2. Appropriate insulation should be used such that losses to the ambient could be minimised. 3. Various components of the precooler should be arranged in such a manner that dismantling and cleaning could be easier. 4. Cooldown losses should be reduced by keeping the machine size and structural components to a minimum. In addition to the above design considerations, other major factors which inuence the design of a cryogenic precooler have been described below. 2.1.2. Heat transfer coecient For an ecient liquid nitrogen precooler, it is essential that as much heat as possible should be removed from the seed by the cold gaseous nitrogen. In order to obtain a high freezing rate, it is necessary that the LN2 evaporates on the seed to be frozen, because a very high heat transfer coecient can be obtained when heat transfer takes place to the liquid boiling on a solid surface. The attainable heat transfer coecients between seed and gas, or rather between seed and gasied liquid determine the ratio of the length of the freezing zone to that of the chilling zone. In the cryogenic liquid nitrogen freezer, these coecients range in the order of 170 W/m2 K in the liquid spray zone to 70 W/m2 K in the gas zone (Wagner, 1972). With these heat transfer coecients, the ideal retention time of the seed in the gas and liquid spray can be calculated. 2.1.3. Design calculation For calculation of cooling load, freezing time and size of various components of the precooler, data on cumin

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seed was taken. Some of the data were assumed based on available literature and logical considerations and the data related to physical and thermal properties of the cumin seed were used from experimental results (Singh & Goswami, 1996; Singh, 1997). 2.1.3.1. Cooling load. The temperature of the cumin seed at the outlet of the precooler was assumed as 120o C, and the temperature required to be maintained in the grinder was from 100C to 90o C. This temperature was selected as it was below the freezing point of cumin oil, i.e. 43o C and the brittle point of the seed, i.e. 70C. It was considered that a part of the temperature rise in the grinder would be neutralised by the lower temperature of the cumin seed entering the grinder and the remainder would be neutralised through heat removal from the grinder by liquid, if any, as well as gaseous nitrogen passing out from the precooler. Eq. (1) is used to calculate the total amount of heat required to be removed from the cumin seed per unit mass: q g1 1 f vf g2 f 2 1 where q is the heat transferred from the seed, J/kg, C1 the specic heat of the seed above freezing point, J/kg C, C2 the specic heat of the seed below freezing point, J/kg C, Lf the latent heat of fusion of the seed, J/kg, T1 the initial temperature of the seed, C, T2 the nal temperature of the seed, C and Tf is the freezing temperature of the seed, C. The values of the following parameters were taken from Singh (1997): Specic heat of the cumin seed above freezing point (C1 ) 2600 J/kg. Specic heat of the cumin seed below freezing point (C2 ) 2000 J/kg. Freezing point of the cumin oil (Tf ) 43C. Latent heat of fusion (Lf ) of moisture and oil present in the seed is calculated assuming 10% m.c.w.b. and 14% oil content. Lf latent heat of fusion of water m.c.w.b + latent heat of fusion of cumin oil oil content 35000 J/kg. Initial temperature of the seed 30C. Final temperature of the seed 120C. Using Eq. (1), the cooling load is calculated as, q 379000 J/kg. Assuming the insulation, leakage and other losses of the system as 20%, the total cooling load (q) is 455000 J/ kg. The cooling load can be assumed to be distributed in the ratio of 70 : 30 in the liquid and gaseous zone, thus: Cooling load in the liquid zone (ql ) 318500 J/kg. Cooling load in the gaseous zone (qg ) 136500 J/kg. 2.1.3.2. Freezing or retention time. The time required for freezing with liquid nitrogen depends on several thermo-

physical and geometrical parameters of the cumin seed, initial and nal temperatures of the seed, heat transfer coecients between the cooling medium and the surface of the seed, etc. The time required for freezing with liquid nitrogen has been cited by Barron (1972) based on modication of Plank's basic formula for calculating freezing time of moisture and oil present in the seed (Eq. (2)): !   5g1 1 f qs qd 1 fd tf 1 2 8vf f g hc k where Tg is the refrigerant temperature, C, qs the true density of the seed, kg/m3 , d the radius of the seed, m, hc the convectional heat transfer coecient of the seed, W/ m2 C, k the thermal conductivity of the seed, W/m C and B is the constant that depends on the geometry of the seed. The freezing or retention time (tf ) is calculated by using Eq. (2). While calculating the retention time it was assumed that the cumin seeds are of cylindrical shape. The values of following parameters are taken from Singh and Goswami (1996); Singh (1997). True density of the seed (qs ) 1070 kg/m3 . Radius of the seed considering cylindrical shape (d) 1.1103 m. Thermal conductivity of the seed (k) 0.15 W/m C. Heat transfer coecient in liquid zone 170 W/m2 C (Wagner, 1972). Heat transfer coecient in gaseous zone 70 W/m2 C (Wagner, 1972). Constant B for cylindrical shaped product 1/16 (Wagner, 1972). The freezing or retention time in liquid zone was calculated by substituting the above mentioned values in Eq. (2) as: tf liquid 68 s. tf gaseous 134 s. Total retention time of the seed in the precooler: (tf )liquid +(tf )gaseous 68+134 202 s. 2.1.3.3. Screw conveyor A horizontal screw conveyor was designed to meet the requirement of feeding to the grinder and metering. The throughput capacity of a screw conveyor mainly depends on the screw diameter, pitch of the screw, and rotational speed. The capacity of the screw conveyor can be calculated by using Eq. (3) (Spivakovsky & Dyachkov, 1985). 47 h2 d 2 p n w qb g 3 where, Q is the capacity of a screw conveyor, kg/h, D the screw diameter, m, d the screw shaft diameter, m, p the pitch of the screw, m, n the rotational speed of the screw conveyor, RPM, qb the bulk density of the seed, kg/m3 , w the coecient of friction of screw cross section and C

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is the correction factor that depends on angle of inclination of screw. Diameter of the screw. The screw diameter is generally selected as h P 10 to 12 where D is screw diameter and a is average size of the seed which was taken as 5 mm (Singh & Goswami, 1996). Thus, h 10 5 50 mmX The shaft diameter (d) was assumed as 30 mm. Pitch of the screw. The screw pitch (p) was taken as one-third of the screw diameter, therefore, Pitch 17X5 mmX Rotational speed of the screw conveyor. The value of the bulk density (qb ) of the cumin seed was taken as 500 kg/m3 (Singh & Goswami, 1996). w 0.45 for light non-abrasive materials (Spivakovsky & Dyachkov, 1985). C 1 at 0o angle of inclination of the screw (Spivakovsky & Dyachkov, 1985). The screw conveyor was designed for the capacity of 3 kg/h to suit the requirement of the grinder under study. Thus substituting the above values in Eq. (3), n 10 RPMX Since conveying velocity, v p na60 0X0292 m/s and residence time, tf vav. Substituting the value of residence time in liquid zone as 68 s and conveying velocity as 0.0292 m/s, we get length of liquid zone 200 mm. Similarly substituting the value of residence time in gaseous zone as 134 s, length of gaseous zone 391 mm which is approximated to 400 mm. Thus total length of the screw conveyor is 600 mm. 2.1.4. Description of precooling unit The screw conveyor consists of a 600 mm long and 50 mm diameter screw made of aluminium (Fig. 1). The

total length and diameter of the shaft are 750 and 30 mm, respectively. The lead of the screw is 17.5 mm. The shaft is supported by two aluminium bushes xed with anges at both ends. The screw shaft is enclosed in a 70 mm diameter and 655 mm long aluminium barrel. Both ends of the barrel are covered with anges which are pressed between barrel ends and bushes. The shaft is enclosed in the barrel in such a manner that a gap of 1.5 mm is maintained between the screw and the bottom portion of the inner surface of the barrel throughout the length, so that material is not retained at the inner surface of the cage. The barrel is insulated from outside with asbestos rope and asbestos powder throughout the surface to minimize heat gain from the surrounding. The thickness of the insulation is 10 mm. At the upper portion of the barrel, a distributor made of copper tube having 200 mm length and 10 mm internal diameter, is xed (Fig. 2). The distributor has a number of perforations to spray liquid nitrogen over the material being conveyed through the barrel. The diameters of the perforations are 0.5 mm up to half of the length in both side from the centre, i.e. 50 mm on both side from the centre of the distributor, and 1 mm on rest of 50 mm at the ends of the distributor. There are three rows of the perforations in a zig-zag manner, one at centre and two at 45 angle from the centre (Fig. 2). The centre to centre spacing between perforations is 10 mm. Both ends of the tube are closed. The distributor is xed at 10 mm distance from the inlet and 380 mm from the outlet to allow thorough mixing of the liquid and vapour nitrogen with the material, and to freeze the oil present in the material. The screw shaft and cage are mounted on a frame made of 800 mm 310 mm 335 mm mild steel angle iron (Fig. 3). An air compressor (Model HS-WP-1, High Speed Appliances, Bombay) is used to supply compressed air to the liquid nitrogen (LN2 ) dewar (Fig. 4). The resulting pressure helps the liquid to ow out of the dewar. The maximum air ow rate of the compressor is 110 l/ min. It was driven by a 550 W single phase electric motor. The compressor has provision for automatic cuto of the power supply at a particular air pressure. The

Fig. 1. Sectional view of coolong zone showing position of screw conveyor and distributor.

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Fig. 2. Details of liquid nitrogen distributor.

air ow at the outlet of the compressor can be varied with the help of a valve. A double walled, vacuum insulated dewar (IBP make) having capacity of 55 l was used for storage and transfer of LN2 (Fig. 4). An LN2 transfer assembly (IBP make) was xed over the dewar to regulate the ow rate of the liquid nitrogen passing to distributor attached to the conveyor assembly. The transfer assembly contained a pressure gauge (range 01 kg/cm2 and least count 0.02 kg/cm2 ) to indicate the pressure inside the LN2 dewar, a relief valve for protection against excessive pressure and a manual shut-o valve to control the LN2 ow. A 10 mm diameter teon tube was used to connect the LN2 dewar and distributor of the screw conveyor assembly.

A 370 W, single phase DC motor was used to operate the conveyor (Fig. 3). The electric supply was given through a variable speed DC motor to the speed reduction unit. The ratio of the gear reduction unit was 36:1. The shaft of the gear reduction unit was coupled with the screw shaft through a coupling made of Hylam (bakelite reinforced fabric) as shown in Fig. 3. The material Hylam insulates the cold screw shaft from the warm motor shaft. The speed of the screw shaft could be varied by regulating the input voltage to the motor through a transformer. The feed rate and retention time of the grinding material in the precooler were controlled to the desired levels by controlling the speed of the shaft.

Fig. 3. Details of screw conveyor assembly.

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Fig. 4. Schematic view of cryogenic grinding system.

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the grinder.

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2.2. Grinder Fig. 5 shows the dierent components of the grinder (Model Pulverisette 14, Fritsch Industries, Germany) with major dimensions; its pictorial view. The main components of the grinder were a 88.5 mm diameter rotor rotating at a peripheral velocities of 69 m/s (15000 revolutions per minute) and 92 m/s (20000 revolutions per minute). The rotor contained 8 or 12 number of xed ribs. Depending upon the requirement, the rotor containing 8 and 12 number of ribs could be selected. The rotor was surrounded by a sieve ring of trapezoidal opening of uniform size. Sieve rings of different opening sizes (0.08, 0.12, 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0 mm) were available. However, for the experimental purpose only 0.5 and 1.0 mm sieves were chosen. The sieve opening size controlled the nal product size. The operation of grinding was performed by impact and attrition. The impact was achieved by the material being struck with rotor ribs, whereas the attrition was achieved while the seeds were present between the stationery sieve ring and the fast moving rotor. The speed of the rotor could be controlled through an in-built control mechanism. The ground powder was collected in the collector pan from an outlet. A nylon bag was attached to the outlet with a locking clamp. The nylon bag retained the particles and allowed the nitrogen vapour to escape from the grinder. The overall dimension of the grinder was 465 mm320 mm400 mm. The grinder was operated by a 800 W, single phase electric motor. 3. Materials and methods 3.1. Materials For the present study, cumin seed was obtained from the local market during FebruaryMarch, 1995. The initial average moisture content of the seed was found to be 9.53% d.b. The moisture content of the seed was determined by vacuum oven method at 70C and 100 mm Hg until a constant weight was obtained (Ranganna, 1986). The seeds were cleaned manually for broken and immature seeds and foreign matters. 3.2. Experimental procedure For experimentation, the thermocouple bulb was placed in the collecting pan in such a manner that it could measure the temperature of the ground product just coming out through the screen perforations. The compressor was run before starting the experiments. The outlet valve of the compressor was opened slightly so as to get the required preset pressure in the liquid nitrogen (LN2 ) dewar depending upon the grinding temperature

to be maintained. The valve of transfer line was opened to enable the liquid nitrogen ow into the distributor of the screw conveyor assembly (Fig. 4). The screw conveyor assembly and the grinder were cooled to the desired temperature of grinding (160C to 70C). The speed of screw conveyor was selected through a variable speed DC motor. The screw conveyor was run at a speed required for maintaining the desired level of feed rate to the grinder. Samples of 200 g material were lled into the inlet of the screw conveyor assembly. The grinder was run at the selected speed of 69 m/s. The material was allowed to enter into the grinder after passing through the precooler. The grinding took place at the predecided temperature in the range of 160 to 70C at the interval of 30C with variation of 3C. In the case of temperature rise during grinding, the ow rate of liquid nitrogen was increased by increasing the opening of transfer line valve. During grinding, the power consumed for grinding the material was measured by using the wattmeter (range 0750 W) connected to the motor. The powder was collected in a bag attached to the outlet of the chute and the nitrogen vapour let out. The powder samples were packed into moisture resistant exible pouches immediately after grinding. They were sealed properly to check ingress of moisture from the surrounding atmosphere. The samples were stored at 10C till they were analysed for particle size distribution, volatile oil content and colour. 3.3. Measurements A single phase wattmeter (range 0750 W, least count 5 W) was connected with the machine to measure the power consumed and ultimately to measure the energy required in grinding. The following formula is used to calculate the specic energy consumed in grinding: Specific energy consumption Power consumed W 3X6 Feed rate kgah The particle size analysis was carried out by laser scattering using Malvern Particle Sizer (Malvern 3601, Malvern Instruments, UK). The volatile oil content of cumin powder ground at dierent cryogenic temperatures was estimated by distillation method using Clevenger apparatus (Pearson, 1973). 4. Results and discussion The experiments on grinding of cumin seed were conducted at dierent temperatures from 160C to 10C. The sieve choking, particle size distribution, specic energy consumption and quality of the nal product were observed using 8 number of grinders rotor ribs.

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4.1. Sieve choking characteristics Observations on choking of sieves were facilitated by taking photographs of the sieve at grinding temperatures of 70, 40 and 10C either at the completion of

grinding or when the machine was stopped due to sieve choking. As shown in Fig. 6(a), it was observed that at the grinding temperature of 70C, the deposition of cumin powder was minimum. Below 70C, grinding was smooth without any deposition and the sieve was very clear. Accumulation of powder at 40C accounted for about 50% area of the sieve being blocked as shown in Fig. 6(b). At 10C (Fig. 6(c)) almost all the perforations were blocked. Above 70C the grinding experiments could not be completed successfully, because the sieve perforations were blocked soon after running the machine and it stopped due to overloading with the incoming material. The accumulation of powder on the sieve surface might be due to the fact that during grinding at a temperature higher than the brittle point of the seed and freezing point of its oil, the seed was soft and behaved like glue in the grinder. Also, during grinding the oil might have come out of the cells, which had sticky characteristics and formed a layer over the sieve surface (Li et al., 1991). The powder was deposited above this layer and formed a thick layer on the sieve surface which created hindrance in grinding. At the same time, the incoming raw material overloaded the grinding surface and stopped the grinder. At temperatures lower than the brittle point of cumin seed and freezing point of cumin oil, the oil got solidied and the grinding operation was smoother. 4.2. Particle size distribution Particle size distribution of cumin powder ground at dierent temperatures in the range of 160C to

Fig. 6. Photograph showing deposition of cumin powder over sieve surface at dierent grinding temperatures.

Fig. 7. Particle size distribution of cumin powder ground at dierent temperatures.

K.K. Singh, T.K. Goswami / Journal of Food Engineering 39 (1999) 359368 Table 1 Eect of grinding temperature on volume mean diameter, specic energy consumption and volatile oil Grinding temperature (C) 160 130 100 70 F-value
a b

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Volume mean diameter (lm) 153.2 169.5 193.1 215.0 365a

Specic energy consumption (kJ/kg) 55 65 79 98 164a

Volatile oil (ml/100 g) 3.30 3.28 3.28 3.26 3b

Signicant at 1% level. Non-signicant.

70C has been presented in Fig. 7. It may be observed that as the grinding temperature increased from 160C to 70C, there was an increase in the particle size for the same cumulative volume fraction for both the rotors. Similar characteristics of the particle size distribution of ground caraway powder at dierent grinding temperatures (044C) were observed by Wolf and Pahl (1990). 4.3. Volume mean diameter The volume mean diameter increased from 153.2 to 215 lm with increasing grinding temperature from 160C to 70C (Table 1). This increase in volume mean diameter was found to be signicant at 1% level and it followed a second order polynomial relationship. The variation in the volume mean diameter with grinding temperature can be represented by Eq. (4): hv 281X78 1X057 0X0016 2 r 2 1 4

4.5. Volatile oil The volatile oil content decreased from 3.30 to 3.26 ml/100 g with increasing grinding temperature from 160C to 70C. The statistical analysis of the data revealed that this dierence was non-signicant at 5% level. However, Landwehr and Pahl (1986) reported a decrease in volatile oil content of pepper with increasing grinding temperature from 10C to 50C. The dierence in the trend of the results from the present study might be owing to the fact that volatile oil of pepper consisted of components having low boiling point which evaporated at corresponding temperatures. Since cumin seed was ground at much lower temperatures than pepper, the loss of volatile oil was found to be nonsignicant.

References
Andres, C. (1976). Grinding spices at cryogenic temperatures retains volatiles and oils. Food Processing, 37(9), 5253. Barron, R. F. (1972). Cryogenic food processing. Report No. 72-WA/ DE-21. Landwehr, D., & Pahl, M. H. (1986). Cold grinding of spices. International Journal of Food Technology and Food Process Engineering, 37, 174185. Li, S., Ge, S., Huang, Z., Wang, Q., Zhao, H., & Pan, H. (1991). Cryogenic grinding technology for traditional Chinese herbal medicine. Cryogenics, 31, 136137. Murthy, C. T., Krishnamurthy, N., Ramesh, T., & SrinivasaRao, P. N. (1996). Eect of grinding methods on the retention of black pepper volatiles. Journal of Food Science and Technology, 33(4), 299301. Pearson, D. (1973). Laboratory Techniques for Food Analysis. London, Butterworths. Pruthi, J. S. (1980). Spices and condiments-Chemistry, Microbiology and Technology. Academic Press, New York. Pruthi, J. S., & Misra, B. D. (1963). Spice Bull., 3(35), 8. Ranganna, S. (1986). Handbook of Analysis and Quality Control for Fruit and Vegetable Products, 2nd ed., Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi. Russo, J. R (1976). Advanced techniques in new spice plant-cryogenic grinding material handling. Food Engineering International, 1(8), 3335. Singh, K. K., & Goswami, T. K. (1996). Physical properties of cumin seed. Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 64(2), 9398.

where, Dv is the volume mean diameter, lm, T the grinding temperature, C and r2 is the coecient of determination. 4.4. Specic energy consumption The specic energy consumption increased from 55 to 98 kJ/kg with increasing grinding temperature from 160C to 70C (Table 1) and it followed a second order polynomial relationship. The increase in specic energy consumption with grinding temperature was found to be signicant at 1% level. It is obvious that at low grinding temperature, degree of brittleness of cumin seed increased due to which it required less energy in grinding. The relationship between specic energy consumption and grinding temperature can be represented by Eq. (5): i 159X32 1X052 0X0025 2 r 2 1 where E is the specic energy consumption, kJ/kg. 5

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K.K. Singh, T.K. Goswami / Journal of Food Engineering 39 (1999) 359368 Wagner, R. C. (1972). Engineering considerations for the design of a cryogenic food freezer. In Application of cryogenic technology, 4 202214 The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angels, CA. Wolf, T., & Pahl, M. H. (1990). Cold grinding of caraway seeds in impact mill. International Journal of Technology and Food Process Engineering, 41(10), 596604.

Singh, K. K. (1997). Studies on cryogenic grinding of spices. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. Spivakovsky, A. O., & Dyachkov, V. K. (1985). Conveying Machines. Vol. II. (pp. 128137). Moscow, Mir. Venetucci, J. M. (1980). Cryogenic grinding of food stus In N. R. Braton, Cryogenic recycling and processing, 148181 CRC Press Inc., USA.