PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

The paper presents the parameter setting and optimizing the brushing, bubble, and microbubble techniques to clean the raw edible bird nest (EBN). EBN is nourishment created entirely from the secretions of swiftlets, with no added ingredients. Because of its medical benefits, cleaned EBN is in high demand. In general, the raw EBN has been cleaned using human manual cleaning with the help of tweezers. However, this method is lengthy as it took about one hour to clean 1 EBN fully. Hence, some mechanical cleaning techniques are needed to clean the raw EBN to improve the cleaning time and cleanliness. This paper aims to optimize the three mechanical cleaning techniques: brushing, bubble, and microbubble. Taguchi Method is used to design and optimize the combination setting of all parameters. The chosen optimized parameter set will then be tested to find the optimal parameter sets for the cleaning process. The time setting for each parameter is set at 30, 45, and 60 seconds. Each of these parameters is tested to obtain the best-optimized parameter. Once the best-fit parameters are identified, the experiment is conducted using the three selected parameters with three different sequences to find the most effective and efficient sequence to clean the raw EBN. With the experiment being carried out, the output of the best sequence of the cleaning process is Sequence 1, which contributes to the cleanliness of 66.18% and cleaning time of 7 minutes.

• Agarwal, A., Ng, W. J., & Liu, Y. (2011). Principle and applications of microbubble and nanobubble technology for water treatment. Chemosphere, 84(9), 1175-1180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2011.05.054

• Chua, L. S., & Zukefli, S. N. (2016). A comprehensive review on edible bird nests and swiftlet farming. Journal of Integrative Medicine, 14(6), 415-428. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2095-4964(16)60282-0

• Cranbrook, E. O., Lim, G. W., Koon, L. C., & Rahman, M. A. (2013). The species of white-nest swiftlets (Apodidae, Collocaliini) of Malaysia and the origins of house-farm birds: Morphometric and genetic evidence. Forktail, 29(2013), 107-119.

• Deng, Y. E., Sun, S. Q., Zhou, Q., & Li, A. (2006). Analysis and discrimination of collocalia esculenta L. via FTIR spectroscopy. Guang Pu Xue Yu Guang Pu Fen Xi/Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis, 26(7), 1242-1245.

• Fuchs, B. F. J. (2002). Ultrasonic cleaning: Fundamental theory and application. Blackstone-ney Ultrasonics.

• Gan, S. H., Ong, S. P., Chin, N. L., & Law, C. L. (2016). Color changes, nitrite content, and rehydration capacity of edible bird’s nest by advanced drying method. Drying Technology, 34(11), 1330-1342. https://doi.org/10.1080/07373937.2015.1106552

• Haghani, A., Mehrbod, P., Safi, N., Aminuddin, N. A., Bahadoran, A., Omar, A. R., & Ideris, A. (2016). In vitro and in vivo mechanism of immunomodulatory and antiviral activity of edible bird’s nest (EBN) against influenza A virus (IAV) infection. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 185, 327-340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2016.03.020

• Ibrahim, S. H., Teo, W. C., & Baharun, A. (2009). A study on suitable habitat for swiftlet farming. Journal of Civil Engineering, Science and Technology, 1(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.33736/jcest.67.2009

• Kim, H. S., Lim, J. Y., Park, S. Y., & Kim, J. H. (2017). Effects on swirling chamber and breaker disk in pressurized-dissolution type microbubble generator. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 21(4), 1102-1106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-016-1075-3

• Kovalenko, A., Jouhannaud, J., Polavarapu, P., Krafft, M. P., Waton, G., & Pourroy, G. (2016). Incorporation of negatively charged iron oxide nanoparticles in the shell of anionic surfactant-stabilized microbubbles: The effect of NaCl concentration. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 472, 180-186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2016.02.016

• Lin, P. J., Chuang, M. C., & Chang, S. C. (2015). Research on the cleaning efficacy of microbubbles on dental plaque. Procedia Manufacturing, 3, 13-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.102

• Matsuura, K., Uchida, T., Ogawa, S., Guan, C., & Yanase, S. (2016). Surface interaction of microbubbles and applications of hydrogen-bubble method for cleaning and separation. In 2015 International Symposium on Micro-NanoMechatronics and Human Science (MHS) (pp. 1-4). IEEE Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1109/MHS.2015.7438234

• Moallem, P., Serajoddin, A., & Pourghassem, H. (2017). Computer vision-based apple grading for golden delicious apples based on surface features. Information Processing in Agriculture, 4(1), 33-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inpa.2016.10.003

• Nandi, C. S., Tudu, B., & Koley, C. (2014, December 28-29). Computer vision based mango fruit grading system. In International Conference on Innovative Engineering Technologies (ICIET 2014) (pp. 1-5). Bangkok, Thailand.

• Siswanto, A. P. (2019). Microbubble characterisation for ballast water treatment on ships over indonesian exclusive economic zones. Waste Technology, 7(1), 45-49. https://doi.org/10.12777/wastech.7.1.45-49

• Subramaniama, Y., Faib, Y. C., & Ming, E. S. L. (2015). Edible bird nest processing using machine vision and robotic arm. Jurnal Teknologi, 72(2). https://doi.org/10.11113/jt.v72.3889

• Thida, W., & Danworaphong, S. (2017). Developing a cleaning system for edible bird’s nest using turbulent flow and ultrasonic waves. In 24th International Congress on Sound and Vibration 2017 (ICSV 24) (pp. 1769-1775). International Institute of Acoustics & Vibration.

• Thorburn, C. C. (2015). The edible nest swiftlet industry in Southeast Asia: Capitalism meets commensalism. Human Ecology, 43(1), 179-184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-014-9713-1

• Wong, Z. C. F., Chan, G. K. L., Dong, T. T. X., & Tsim, K. W. K. (2018). Origin of red color in edible bird’s nests directed by the binding of Fe ions to acidic mammalian chitinase-like protein. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 66(22), 5644-5653. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.8b01500

• Xian, C. Y., Sin, T. C., Liyana, M. R. N., Awang, A., & Fathullah, M. (2017). Green perspective in food industry production line design: A review. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1885, No. 1, p. 020103). AIP Publishing LLC. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5002297

• Zukefli, S. N., Chua, L. S., & Rahmat, Z. (2017). Protein extraction and identification by gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry from edible bird’s nest samples. Food Analytical Methods, 10(2), 387-398. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12161-016-0590-7