• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.167-174
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• 2009

This study was conducted to develop an agaricus bisporus washing machine which uses compressed air to remove foreign materials attached on the surface of agaricus bisporus. A prototype of the washing machine was constructed, and performance of removing foreign materials was tested. Research results are as follows: 1. Several transferring methods including PE roller rotation, brush roller rotation, PE screw rotation, vibration plate, and belt conveyor were evaluated. Roller, screw, and vibration methods caused damages on the surface of the products, but belt conveyor method caused the least damages. 2. For air jet, a stationary nozzle type and a rotational type were evaluated. The best air jet nozzle was the jet-type nozzle, and the rotational type was more effective than stationary type nozzle. 3. With the conveyer belt, box type moving method and the rotational air jet nozzle, the washing machine showed the best performance when higher than 5.4${\times}$105 Pa of air jet pressure and lower than 0.047 m/s of moving speed was used. Working performance of the system was 650 kg/h, and the damaging rate was 1.2 %.