Determine the specific energy consumption for grinding wet cattle manure with a special size reduction machine

Compression is one of the suitable solutions to reduce the volume of biomass materials. The cattle manure pellet production (extruder) transforms manure into pellet in the humidity range of 35 to 45 percent (based on the wet). The use of a size reduction machine is necessary for grinding cattle manure in pellet production.  The objective of this study was determining specific energy consumption for grindingwet cattle manure at three levels of moisture content of cow manure (35, 40 and 45 % w.b) and three levels of thrasher unit rotational speed (150, 200 and 250 rpm) using special size reduction machine. The experiment was a factorial arranged in a Randomized Complete Design with three replications. One Kg of cattle manure was grinded in each test and the particle size of grinded cattle manure was determined. The highest specific energy consumption was 4.62 (KJ / Kg) for thrasher unit rotational speed of 150 rpm at 45 % (w.b) moisture content. The thrasher unit rotational speed was negatively connected with specific energy consumption, such that in the highest rotational speed of thrasher unit (250 rpm), lowest specific energy consumption (1.72 KJ/Kg) was observed. The lowest geometric mean diameter of wet cattle manure was 1.02 for thrasher unit rotational speed of 200 rpm at 35% (w.b) moisture content.