Annatto Powder Production in a Spouted Bed: An Experimental and CFD Study

The mechanical extraction of the bixin from Bixa orellana seeds using a spouted bed was investigated in this work. The experimental program was divided into two main steps. In the first step, a two-level factorial experimental design was used to analyze the influence of the main process variables on the mechanical extraction responses. The second step of the experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of the distance between the draft tube and the conical base (h t). Computational fluid dynamic technique was used to understand seed flow and the effect of h t on the mechanical extraction process. The results obtained showed that the presence of the draft tube was the variable that most strongly affected the powder extraction. The best condition for the bixin extraction from B. orellana seeds was the one when the draft tube was positioned at 4 cm from the air inlet.