Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: February 13, 2009
Publication Date: May 15, 2009
Citation: Hughs, S.E. 2009. Development of a seed cotton reclaimer for roller gins. National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference. 2009 CD p. 614. Interpretive Summary: This report covers the development of an experimental seed-cotton reclaimer for use in roller gin plants. An existing impact cleaner that is normally used to remove fine trash from seed cotton before ginning was modified to serve as a seed-cotton reclaimer. Test material that consisted of a mixture of cottonseed and unginned seed cotton was processed through the impact cleaner while high speed videos were being taken. The videos were visually analyzed for the efficiency of separation of cottonseed and unginned seed cotton. This visual analysis was then used to guide design changes for the experimental seed-cotton reclaimer. The experimental reclaimer is reclaiming all of the desirable seed cotton but is loosing some good cottonseed (less than 1%). Visual analysis of the most recent high speed videos have suggested a means of eliminating this seed loss. The experimental seed-cotton reclaimer will be installed in the Laboratory roller ginning line for more testing after completion of this initial development phase.
Technical Abstract: During the roller ginning process there is always a small percentage of seed cotton that is not or only ginned and passes through with the ginned cottonseed. The unginned seed cotton in the cottonseed stream is called carryover. The carryover is reclaimed from the cottonseed and returned to the seed-cotton stream being fed to the roller-gin stand to be ginned. With the advent of high-speed roller ginning of upland cotton, the amount of seed-cotton carryover has increased over previous levels. Thus, an improved seed cotton reclaimer for use with the higher roller ginning rates to handle the increased carryover is needed. An impact cleaner is a standard piece of seed-cotton cleaning equipment used before the gin stand to remove fine trash. The impact cleaner was designed to handle and clean high flowrates of seed cotton. An impact cleaner was modified to better reclaim the unginned seed cotton carryover from the cottonseed at the higher flowrates resulting from high-speed roller ginning. High speed videos (500 frames per second) taken of the operation of the experimental reclaimer over a period of several weeks were used to make stop action observations of various parts of the reclaimer to guide design changes. Visual analysis of the videos resulted in changes in saw and grid bar spacing, machine angle and sheet metal baffle shapes. At the time of the presentation, the experimental reclaimer reclaimed all of the desirable seed cotton, but allowed a very small amount of ginned cottonseed (estimated at less than 1%) to remain with the seed cotton. Observation of the most recent high speed videos suggested that reducing the speed of several components may solve the cottonseed loss problem. Once the initial phase design/experimentation is complete, the reclaimer will be installed in the Laboratory roller ginning line for more extensive testing.