Development of a Multipurpose Extruder/Press Food Processing System

Insta-Pro International, proposes the design and development of a versatile, compact, lightweight, energy efficient, and easy maintained seed processing equipment that can be operated in low gravity environments. The proposed equipment, a scale down refinement based on successful current large scale Insta-Pro processing systems, can be used for cooking, shaping, texturizating, dehydration, phase separation, and stabilization of crops such as rice, beans, peanuts and soybeans to support human planetary explorations. The equipment will be designed to use internally generated heat for processing food to reduce or eliminate the need for inherently inefficient heating from an external source. In addition, the equipment will be optimized to minimize the Equivalent System Mass (ESM) while maximizing the quality of the final product. Anticipated results for Phase I will be detailed plans for the design of the optimized food processing equipment attained by computational simulation of various concept designs . This optimum design will provide the basis for hardware development and testing in Phase II and the manufacture and marketing (in Phase III) to a wide array of users.