CONCLUSIONS
The vibrating feeder technology was demonstrated for
its high potential efficiency for separating macadamia nuts
after the cracking operation. No attempt was made at this
stage to develop a comprehensive separation system. The
focus was on the proof of concept and evaluation of the
feasibility of future development of a commercial
separating machine which would utilize the proposed
method. The advantages of this method are its simplicity,
relatively low cost, and trouble-free operation. Also, it
could be integrated fairly easily into the existing processing
line of macadamia nut.
However, since very little information is available at
present from theoretical studies, we are still dependent on
empirical results. A future, thorough theoretical study could
assist in providing tractable design parameters that would
be very useful to the industry. Finally, although the
proposed technology has been applied in separation of
macadamia nuts, it is conceivable that it could be used for
separation of other agricultural produce.