The prototype was not to be finished during the time we were in India, due to difficulties with the manufacturer. This was quite a setback for the project. However it is very important when the prototype will be finished, the following actions need to be proceeded.
After finalizing and building the prototype there are several experiments that should be performed to determine the optimal values for the distillation process. The planning for the experimental part that can be found in Appendix D. Appendix E shows the tests, the variables and the results of the experiments. Combining all the results will give the optimal values for distillation of lemongrass and should be noted in the next table.
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Variable |
Value |
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Drying time + type |
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Flow rate |
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Packing density |
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Part of grass |
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Steam temperature |
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Distillation time |
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Total oil recovered from 10 kg batch |
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With these optimal properties of the distillation unit, there can be made a more precise estimate on how much lemongrass oil there will be produced within a year in the given area. This value is very important for the business of Lemongrass Essential, because then it is known how much lemongrass oil can be sold in a year. This affects the search for customers, because the different customers have different demands of amounts for lemongrass oil. For example if we find a company, which wants to sell 500 liters a year, but we only produce 100 liters, this will not be the ideal company to do business with.
The next step is to make an estimation of the quantity of lemongrass that could be produced with the available land in the village. The calculation will be described here:
As is shown in the chart above, the land holds a potential of at least 828 litres of oil per year. We have left a safety marge here by calculating with three, rather than four, harvests per year.
If we calculate with 250 working days per year, we would have to process 500 kilograms of lemongrass per day. This means we would need a distillery that can extract the oil out of 100 kilograms of lemongrass, five times per day.
Combining the results of the experiments of the prototype with this estimation will lead us to the potential of the final design.