Study on feed product technology for three different vegetable residues

The amount of vegetable residues produced through plucking, processing, transporting and selling vegetables has been rising sharply with the rapid growth of vegetable industry and commercial vegetable processing. Because of lack of suitable economic processing technology, the reclamation rate of vegetable residues has been low. Large amount of vegetable residues still remained in the fields, on the side of rural roads and in drainage canals. Vegetable residues eventually rot and cause severe pollution of soil, water and the atmosphere. In particular, vegetable residues have endangered green vegetables production areas. In recent years, vegetable residues have been mainly used as feed, organic fertilizer or directly returned to the field as mulch/green mature. However, the cost of such processing has increased significantly, precluding efforts for commercial industrialization. Thus low cost processing of vegetable residues was urgently needed to mitigate loss in the vegetable industry. This study mainly focused on available low cost processes of vegetable residues to prompt their reclamation. Fodder processing lines were designed according to vegetable residue conditions-high water content, easy to rot, large amount. Fodder processing lines included units of cleaning, beating, pressure filtration, water treatment, mixing, granulating and block making. The production parameters of vegetable residue processing were optimized by using the Chinese cabbage, cabbage and celery residues. Single factor method and orthogonal experiment were used to optimize the contents of adjuvant roughage of vegetable residues, which included bentonite, middling powder, rice shell powder and corn gluten meal. The results showed that after cleaning and beating, the diameter of Chinese cabbage, cabbage and celery residue particles were within 10 mm. The convey belt speed of bubble washers of the Chinese cabbage, cabbage and celery residues were 6 7 m·min^-1, 7 8 m·min^-1, 8 9 m·min ^-1, respectively. After filtration under 0.05 0.06 MPa diaphragm squeeze pressure for 20 min, water content of vegetable residues dropped to below 35% with monofilament filter cloth for celery and 750B filter cloth for Chinese cabbage and cabbage as filtration materials. The vegetable residues roughage contained 12.5% bentonite, 10.0% middling powder, 15.0% rice shell powder and 3.0% corn gluten meal. Its' average rate of briquetting was 94.67%. The production capacity of processing lines equaled or exceeded 5.0 t·h^-1, power consumption was 22.0 kW·h^-1·t^-1, discharged water of pressure filtration was within the GB8978-1996 requirements. The density of roughage was 920.0 kg·m ^-3, water content less than 10.0%, firmness 82.0% and uniformity 95.0%. The applications indicated that the vegetable residue pretreatment device had a high degree of automation and simple operation with practical features. It was suitable for vegetable residues resolution by commercial processing and large farmers' markets.