DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ANIMAL FEEDSTUFF STERILIZATION MACHINE BY USING UV-C IRRADIATION

The livestock sector plays a vital role in Egypt's food security, as its products provide meat, dairy, and poultry. The feed is exposed during storage to many losses in both quantity and quality; this is due to its exposure to storage diseases, infection with fungi, molds, and pathogenic viruses. Therefore, modern and cheap methods must be provided. These methods encourage small business owners to use them to reduce the negative impact of applying chemical disinfectants. This study aims to develop an experimental UV-C sterilization machine and evaluate its performance. The designed prototype was tested considering four different cylinder's revolving speeds (10, 15, 20, and 25 rpm), four feeding rate levels (0.6, 1.2, 1.8, and 2.6 Mg/h), and three levels of the cylinder's slope angle (0, 10, and 20 degrees). The different criteria of poultry feedstuff, such as mycotoxins contamination percentage, power, and energy requirement during the sterilization process were considered as evaluation parameters. It was concluded that when the feed components were exposed to UV-C radiation, the growth of mycotoxins was inhibited. The best sterilization rate of the UV-C sterilization machine is 98% at 20 rpm, 1.8 Mg/h, and 10 degrees. The cost of sterilization one Mega gram of feed material decreased by about seven times compared with the traditional method.