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EXTRUSION
INTRODUCTION
Cooking extruders have become generally accepted the food processing industry because of
their versality and their ability to consistently produce a given set of predetermined specification at a
reasonable profit margin. The problem is having best to impart shaping, texturing certain desired
organoleptic through this processing chambers. These machines after many basic design advantages that
enable them to be used for minimizing energy cost, equipment cost and processing cost, per ton of
standardized product.

Cereal flours ,tubers and their derivatives can be processed into snack foods, breakfast cereals,
breading, confectionery items and precooked starches for industrial applications legumes based raw
materials can be transformed into textured vegetable, meat analogs, and precooked soup powders.
Mixtures of cereals and meat by products are transformed into dry expanded pet foods. De boned meat
can be firmly compressed and reshaped into strips or links.

Food processing is a broad term, which encompasses various steps that a food undergoes
right from the time it comes out of the farm until it reaches the mouth of the consumer.

The foods are mainly processed

˜c To eliminate unedible material

˜c To improve their palatability
˜c To increase their digestibility
˜c To destroy antinutritional factors
˜c To destroy the harmful microorganisms
˜c It increases shelf life of the food
˜c To suitable combine with other foods to improve the nutritional quality

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT:
The extruder cookers of the 19th century were only used to shape sausage meat and farinaceous
products. Not until 1946, were single screw units used commercially for the extrusion cooking and
expansion of corn snacks. In the fifties, baked pet food biscuits were largely replaced by extrusion cooked
ones. In the sixties, the use of single screw extruders for precooking starches, texturing soya proteins and
for the direct expansion of breakfast cereals become more popular.

Extrusion cooking, a modern high temperatures short time process(HTST) is being used in more and
more conventional branches of the food and chemical industries.
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EXTRUDER SYSTEM:
There are many extruders systems in the markets for the extrusion cooking. The most important of them
are

˜c Single Screw
˜c Twin Screw (Tangential)
˜c Twin Screw (Inter-Meshing) of the single extruders, it is the core- progressive which are the most
common in extrusion cooking.

FUTURE TRENDS IN EXTRUSION COOKING:

Development on the food processing market may have a great impact on the future of the extrusion
cooking process. Extrusion cooking has economic advantages. The variety of food products produced in
the extruders continues to expand. The extrusion has a beneficial effect upon the production of extruded
food products. The cooking extruder provides unique potential. It can modify starch in the cereals with very
low moisture content.

EXTRUDER SYSTEM-
The extrusion cooker used for the production of snack food is the winger extrusion cookng system
which is German made. There are two extrusion cooking system in the plant. The older one is controlled
manually while second cooker is operated under computer controls. The new extrusion cooking system is
also of winger but with certain modification and this equipment is capable of producing 26 different
shapes of product, provided it is properly maintained.

Each system is provided with complete assembly of dryer, cooler, flavor applicator,
automatic weighing and packing machine. Some processing parameters of extrusion cooking system is

˜c Model ² X 175
˜c No. of heads ² 8
˜c Product ² Wheat and soybean
˜c Capacity ² 2000 kg/hr
˜c Extrusion drive RPM ² 320
˜c Conditioning cylinder rpm-250/125
˜c Feeder rpm-15-60
˜c Knife driver rpm-3000 max
˜c Steam injector in head no-3,4,5
˜c Diameter (used at present)-4 mm
˜c Temperature at preconditioning-90-1000c
˜c Aulk density of the final product-0.2 to 0.25
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EXTRUSION:
Extrusion cooking may be defined as a process by which moistened, strongly materials are plasticized
and cooked in a rotating barrel with screw by combination of pressure, heat and mechanical shear. It may
be considered as a screw reactor for physical, chemical in bio-chemical transformation.

EXTRUSION PROCESS:
Aased in the later described process parameters, water and steam are injected at the time into the pre-
conditioner to allow the product to soften and swell. In the present context, involves the preparation of
dough Fat and other liquid components are preferable added into the conditioner too. In the extruder, the
hot, soft and damp feed mash will then be intensively mixed and gently shared. Due to the mechanical
energy input, the temperature will increase to above 100. The mixed and cooked dough is very elastic and
would vigorously expand at the die due to the release of the steam pressure. The pellets would be of
undefined density, which may cause problem with packaging. However if a venting port is installed, it is
possible to adjust the product density vary effectively by releasing part or all of the steam pressure prior to
being pressed through the die. Steam is back to conditioner this saving steam and reducing emissions of
odor to the environment. This process also works the opposite way. If the temperature needs to be
increased at this position, steam can be injected. Extruders based on the high protein formulations
become more elastic when water and steam addition rates are increased and they develop rounder
shapes.

EXTRUSION EQUIPMENT:
EXTRUSION STAND

A steady stand requires to support the drive, bearing and extruder screw assembly. For long screw,
provision is also made to allow for expansion of the barrel when heated.

DRIVE MECHANISM:

Extruders are drive through gear reduction to provide proper screw speed. The power requirement varies
with the type of operation and ranges from 0.05 to 0.36Kw/hr/mg.

THRUST AEARING;

As the food material moves forward in the screw, it generates significant reward thrust. To absorb this
back trust bearing the extruder is supported with the thrust bearing.

FEED HOPPER:

Many times the hopper is equipped with agitator in the bottom to reduce bridging of the feed and
increases the ease with which it moves into the extruder.
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AARREL:

The barrel of an extruder is often made into sections, which are fitted together with bolts. The inner
surface is grooved to reduce slippage and increase the pumping capability of the extruder since high shear
is developed in the inner surface, the surface is hardened to reduce abrasion spin casting, where a special
metallic coating of about 3mm thickness is applies to the surface of the barrel under heat and centrifugal
force nit riding with ammonia at high temperatures can also greatly increase the surface hardness.

The initial diameter of the extruder often denotes the basic size. The standard sizes of 2.50, 3.81,
5.08, 11.43, 15.24 and 20.32cm are commonly as more the surface for heating or cooling and larger
residence time. Food extruder has varying L/D ration, ranging from 1-3/1, to 15-25/1, for high shear
cooking extruder.

SCREW:

This is the central part of a food extruder typical screw can be divided into three sections, depending
upon the function each position plays in the extrusion process.

˜c Feed Sections:
This section has normally deeper flights or flights of greater pitch. This allows the feed materials to
fall into the screw and being to be conveyed along with barrel.
˜c Compression Section:
In this section, the feed material is compacted and converted from granular or striking mass
uniform plasticized dough.
˜c Metering section:
This section has relatively shallow flights, reduced or increased restriction or interruption of the
channel area.

This section thoroughly mixes and increases the temperatures of the extruded material screws with
relatively long metering section to produce products with the greatest uniformity and few or fluctuations in
the extrusion output.

In relatively long screws, each of the above sections in approximately 1/3 of the total length of the
screw. A screw that operates at higher speed normally has shallower pitches than the forming type of the
extruders shallow flights increases shear. Pressure and mixing but reduces the extruder output. Heat
sensitive material is often damages in shallow slighted screws.

The clearance between the screw and barrel is usually kept small to reduce the leakages of feed over
the lands of the screw. Aarrel grooves enhances leakage and back mixing but reduces the slippage at the
walls, and increases the pumping capability spiral groves in the barrel also increases the forward
movement of the product.
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DIE;
The holes can be of different from the produce into the rods, spheres, tubes, stripes, etc., as the product
comes out of the die; it expands due to sudden release into the atmospheric pressure from a very high
pressure. The moisture present in the product flashes due to the sudden fall in pressure as the product is
often above the boiling point of water. The quantity of moisture evaporated can be estimated by the
following:

M2=M1-cp (t1-t2)

Where:

M1= Moisture content before extrusion in wet basis.

M2= Moisture content after extrusion on wet basis.

T1= Temperature before extrusion

T2=Temperature after extrusion

Cp=Heat Capacity

CUTTER:
Clean cutting is necessary to achieve heat and uniform extruded product. Thin knives cut cleaner than
the thick knives with a pitched cutting surface. The cutter should have speed motor assembly to vary
length of the extruded product.

ELEMENTS OF HTST EXTRUSION COOKING

The fundamental elements of extrusion cooking are the following;-

1)c Uninterrupted feeding or granular or floury process materials to an extrusion cooker at

controlled rates.
2)c Pre conditioning process materials with steam at moderate and carefully controlled temperature
(83-120) and at atmosphere pressure.
3)c Uniform application of moisture.
4)c Equipment designed to granular or floury material it to dough at 83-120 and converts the dough
to a colloidal structure.
5)c Elevating and controlling the temperature of the dough during the latest 10-30 sec in the
product to its desired quantity.
6)c Forming the extruded UN to the desired size and shape in a final die and cutting the extruded
into desired size.
7)c Drying and cooling the extruded before or after application of liquid flavors. Syrups, lipids or
emulsions certain extrusion-cooked products or reduced in particle size before or after drying
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and cooling by impact milling other extrusion cooked products are densified into small moist
beads and there after rolled into thin flakes before drying and cooling.

FACTORS AFFECTING EXTRUSION PERFORMANCE:

MOISTURE CONTENT:

Minimum water activity is necessary for the desired polymer transformation to occur during HTST
extrusion cooking. An intermediate and low moisture content feed material has additional advantage that
the product need not be dry. The moisture contents of the mass in the extruder significantly affect the
apparent viscosity, expansion and product breaking strength. Moisture content has a greater influence on
transformation than temperature. However the influences of moisture content are related with shear rate
temperature and die size.

Feed Rate:

A heat transfer characteristics of the material is greatly influenced by the feed rate. High feed rate
results in the decrease of water absorption and solubility properties of the product.

Particle size:

The cooking and gelatinization of the product is influenced by the particle size. Depending upon the type
of extruder and the product desired particle size of the raw materials is an important fraction to be
considered.

Amylase is less susceptible than amylopectin to mechanical damage in the flow environment with the
extruder. High amylase products are denser, harder and less radically expands when extruded.

VEGETAALE PROTEIN:

During extrusion cooking at typical temperatures and pressures, the pertinacious material like defatted
plant protein becomes a plasticized mass without loss of moisture.

The protein structure is reoriented and the mass is finally forced through structure of varying width and
thickness. Proteins get stretched by shear stress and are laminated longitudinally when passing through
the die, Gluten wheat gets hydrated which causes it become elastic and expand with release of pressure,
many thin walled cell structures are formed which set on cooling to yield string non friable products.

LIPIDS:

Aecause of the apparent stability of lipids on thermal treatment and low lipid content of most cereal
grains, the changes brought about by them are not apparent.

CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Extruders extensively affect the product, components and additives they process.
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VITAMIN:

The vitamin content of the extruded food products is not lost during extrusion cooking even though the
food products are often heated to temperature excess of 170, because the retention time is very short
(less than 10 seconds). Chemical reaction kinetics show that even very heavy heat liable products can be
subjected to high temperatures if the time of exposure is very short and the resulting chemical changes is
small such in the case for denaturation reactions for vitamins, making vitamin losses in the extrusion
process is relatively small.

Minor Ingredients;
Many minor ingredients like emulsifiers, fats and oil syrups, salts etc are added as additives to get the
desired characteristics in the product. Addition of the sugar increases the degree of gelatinization and salt
improves the expansion and cohesiveness in the extrusion of wheat flour.

Changing during cooking process:

Extrusion cooking brings about profound changes in the physical, chemical, bio-chemical and nutritional
characteristics of the material which ultimately characterize, define and determine the overall quality from
the end use angle.

Physical Characteristics:
The apparent change in the physical state of the material is the expansion it undergoes as it emerges from
the die after extrusion cooking. The degree of expansion largely depends on starch content, its
gelatinization and the water content and die geometry also influence the expansion, where as the addition
of the fat decreases the expansion.

a.c Starch:
Starch is the pre dominant ingredient in extruded snack and ready- to- eat cereals. In most
instances degermed cereal grits are used as an extrusion feed material rather than purified starch,
so that some protein, fat and fiber are parts of the feed mixtures.

Native starch undergoes substantial changes leading to greater molecular deorganization during
extrusion.

b.c Antinutritional factors:

The trypsin inhibitor activity in soybeans is destroyed and there is also deactivation of lipooxidase
during the extrusion cooking.
c.c Amino Acids:
Extruders are often used to process cereal based products which are often limiting in the essential
amino acids lysine. Lysine can become available during process and storage trough non-enzymatic
browning and Mallard reaction which occur between reducing sugars in food and amino group in
lysine. Aut experiments have shown that during cooking very little lysine is destroyed.
d.c Aacteria:
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HTST processing systems have been effective in destroying microorganisms and antinutritional
factors while minimizing their determiniel effect on valuable nutritional food constituents.
e.c Protein Quality:
The extruders have been used to precook a variety of cereal and oil seed ingredients to increase
their ease of preparation, denature antinutritional factors and improve digestibility. Mixing the
blends of cereals which are limiting in lysine with an oil seed such as soybean which is limiting in
sulphur, amino acids can produce a blend which has very high protein quality.
f.c Color:
Color can added significant eye appeal and acceptability to extruded products ranging from cereals
and snack to stimulated meat products.