DESIGN MODIFICATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF SOAP STAMPING - TABLETING MACHINE

References

 

Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in textile spinning, lubricants production and mainly as surfactant in conjunction with water for washing, bathing and cleaning (Wilcox, 2000; Dunn, 2010; and Thorsten, 2003). Thus, soap is a significant product permanently of good hygiene to man and his setting. Soaps for cleansing are usually obtained by treating vegetable or animal oils and fats such as palm oil, coconut oil, olive oil and laurel oil with strong alkaline solution (Cavitch, 1994; Garzena, 2004), attributed the cleaning action of soap to the action of micelles, tiny spheres coated on the outside with polar hydrophilic (water loving) groups, encasing a lipophilic (fat loving) pocket that may surround the grease particles causing them to disperse in water. Soap making falls into two distinct scales; - small and industrial production.

The production of soap industrially requires a continuous process that involves constant addition of fat and removal of products. Smaller scale production involves the normal batch methods with three major variations: the cold- process, wherein the reaction takes place considerably at room temperature, the semi-boiled or hot-process, wherein the reaction takes place at near-boiling point, and the fully boiled process, wherein the reactants are boiled at least once and the glycerol recovered (Nwankwojike, 2012). The cold and hot processes (semi-boiled bath process) are the simplest and typically used by small scale soap producers, artisans and hobbyists. The sequential steps involved in use of these two processes for soap production by these categories of producers as described in (Dunn, 2010; and Zillion Ztanmax Global Ltd, 2010).

Generally, manual process of soap stamping printing of identification marks and tableting shaping and sizing of factory-made soaps are wiped out by industrial scale machine-controlled producing systems whereas most tiny and a few medium scale soap producers use hand stamps and mould/cutting devices knifes for these two operations. A major constraint in soap production for small and medium scale soap manufactures is difficulty in tableting, stamping and shaping for unique product identification. However in the past, manual method of tableting with a knife edge and stamping with a hand stamp has been developed, but this method is quite laborious, time consuming, lacks precision and consistency and is not commercially viable. On a bid to solve this problem, Eze (2010) developed a manually operated soap tableting and stamping machine. This machine was very tedious to operate, although mechanized, but still faced the same problem confronting the manual method of hand stamping. Consequently, this gave rise to the development of a motorized soap stamping and tableting machine by Echidime (2011) and Asiegbu (2014) respectively. But none of these machines were able to shape the soap to bring about unique product identification in terms of shape and stamping. Hence this gives rise to the need for the modification and optimization of soap tableting and stamping machine for small and medium scale soap manufactures.

Dunn., (2010) customers rate products of small scale soap producers as inferior even supposing a number of their product are of higher quality than some industrially created ones. In addition, the tedium and drudgery associated with the use of manual devices for soap tableting and stamping by small scale producers make production of soap at this level uneconomical and unattractive to entrepreneurs, despite the huge market prospect of this sector in Nigeria. 

Preliminary performance testing of this machine indicates its conveying speed, stamping and tableting speed and time of operation affects its three performance parameters similarly at the same level. In other words, high levels of these three operational parameters results to high values of the three performance indicators. It is desired to operate this machine with maximum efficiency and throughput, and minimum specific energy consumption possible. For this reason, it is of economic sense to apply a multi-response optimization technique that uses small number of experimental runs to evaluate the effect of all these factors simultaneously (instead of one-factor-at-a-time experimental approach which is time consuming and costly) to determine the optimal settings of these operational parameters that will satisfy these three responses.

This study aims at modifying and optimizing a soap stamping and tableting machine for small scale industries. The specific objectives include;

This work involves design modification, fabrication, and optimization of a soap stamping and tableting machine.

The innovation of soap stamping and tableting machine is of interest and relief to small scale soap producers, it is a set of compact and moveable automated equipment for soap brand stamping and tableting into size primarily for small scale industries. The uniqueness of this machine is it's interchangeable tableting knifes unlike the regular one-off cut operation, a conveying loading bay, a soap ejection conveyor and a collection tray. The automated machine enhances different pattern of desired shape, enhance high efficiency in production, reduce cost of production and increase profit of small-scale producer. This innovation enables high competition between the small-scale soap manufacturers and major soap producers in the industry, reduce drudgery and encourage entrepreneurs to engage in soap production.