สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume III - 2011 163 Kuakoon Piyachomkwan, Morakot Tanticharoen Cassava pellet industry The pellet industry began a few years after Thailand started exporting chips to the EU. The development of this product was stimulated by the need to improve the uniformity in shape and size of cassava chips required by the compound feed producers/users. In addition, during transportation of chips, dust is generated and causes serious air pollution. To overcome this, chips are transformed to pellet form so that less dust is created during loading and unloading. Production of pellets involves pressing chips and extruding through a large die. The heat and moisture in the chips helps in forming a rod-like product, known as a soft pellet. Later process development involves grinding of chips followed by steam extrusion; this creates strong pellets upon cooling, known as hard pellets which are virtually the only pellets exported to Europe. Cassava starch and starch-based industries The early stage of cassava starch industry development in Thailand involved mostly cottage-scale factories. The process involved grating fresh roots, mixing with water, followed by sedimentation and sun-drying (or conductive heating), the produced product was traditionally named as çcassava mealé or çcassava flouré. Demand for cassava starch increased dramatically and subsequently this led to the development of the modern starch manufacturing process in Thailand. Currently, there are 79 modern starch factories, operating with mechanized processes for separation (e.g. dewatering centrifuge) and drying (e.g. flash dryer) with the total starch production of 15-17 million tons annually (production capacity of 23,500 tons starch/day). The processing time (from grating of fresh root to drying starch) is estimated to be less than 30 minutes. Around 50% of produced starch is used domestically and the rest is for export markets in diversified forms including native, modified and hydrolyzed (e.g. sweeteners, sugar alcohols, amino acids, organic acids). Future exports of cassava starch are expected to increase due to the growth of the global industrial sector and starch markets. 160-170_mac9 5/3/12, 11:43 PM 163