METHOD FOR CLEANING AMARANTH SEEDS FROM IMPURITIES

The article is devoted to the development of a method for cleaning of amaranth seeds from impurities to prepare them for grinding into food grade flour. The method of air-sieve cleaning amaranth grain takes into account the size and content of individual fractions that differ in size but not in color, which worsens the quality of the grinding products. In order to improve this process the amaranth grain has been subjected to a complex step-by-step cleaning, including pneumo classification and photo separation. The object of the study is the grain mass of "Ultra", "Har'kovskij", "Shuntuk", "Lider", "Valentin", " Fakel", " Karakula " amaranth varieties of seed quality with deviations from the baseline conditions of contamination (i.e., from impurities not more than 98.0%) for admission to flour production. Separation of grain mass of amaranth into the components: grain, boxes, fruit shells, and wild amaranth seeds has been carried out using a pneumatic classifier with a closed H3CB air cycle for aerodynamic properties. Photo separation of amaranth grain has been done using an industrial OPTIMA separator of the "SiSort (CSort TM)"company. The results show that complex cleaning of amaranth seeds from impurities with the introduction of photo separation at the secondary grain mass treatment section, calibrated to size before its surface processing allow us to improve grain quality (with a purification degree more than 99.8%) from inoculums to commercial, i.e. suitable for processing into food flour.