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Development of a singulation system for handling catfish fillets

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Abstract

Catfish ranked 8th among seafoods consumed per capita in the United States (U.S.) in 2019. As a major catfish product, catfish fillets are often chilled or frozen for storage after filleting and trimming operations. When they are removed from storage for further processing, manual interference is required to separate and flatten all the catfish fillets that otherwise could agglomerate together. This is necessary for further processing operations such as breading and individual quick-freezing. Because of the shortage of labor force and rising labor costs, there is an urgent need to reduce labor dependence by developing automated singulation methods for catfish fillets manufacturing, to enhance the profitability of the U.S. catfish industry. This study presents a novel singulation system that enables separating catfish fillets by utilizing water buoyancy and underwater streams. Several operation parameters have been investigated and optimized to achieve better singulation performance and production rate. The continuous production mode with operation rules is defined to keep the total amount being processed in an appropriate range for maximizing the singulation effect and production rate. This study will be beneficial for developing more effective next-generation singulation technologies for catfish and other fish species.

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Funding

This work is supported by Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) Strategic Research Initiative (CRIS project # MIS-371210).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coastal Research & Extension Center & Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Mississippi State University, Pascagoula, MS, 39567, USA

    Yi Jing & Wenbo Liu

  2. Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Yuzhen Lu

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, 07030, USA

    Jiaqi Lyu

  4. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, 07030, USA

    Xiaoran Yang

  5. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, 95343, USA

    Di Wu

  6. Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, 39762, USA

    Xin Zhang

Authors
  1. Yi Jing
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  2. Wenbo Liu
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  3. Yuzhen Lu
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  4. Jiaqi Lyu
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  5. Xiaoran Yang
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  7. Xin Zhang
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Contributions

Yi Jing: writing—original draft, methodology, investigation, data curation, validation, formal analysis. Wenbo Liu: supervision, methodology, investigation, project administration, conceptualization, resources, funding acquisition, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Yuzhen Lu: writing—review and editing, supervision, methodology. Jiaqi Lyu: methodology, investigation, data curation, validation, formal analysis. Xiaoran Yang: conceptualization, writing—original draft. Di Wu: conceptualization, writing—original draft. Xin Zhang: supervision, writing—review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wenbo Liu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Jing, Y., Liu, W., Lu, Y. et al. Development of a singulation system for handling catfish fillets. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 128, 81–89 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11867-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11867-3

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