Skip to main content

The Quality of Locally-manufactured Cornmill Grinding Plates

cornmill
Corn mill

A KNUST research has revealed people who consume corn-related foods risk contracting all kinds of cancers

According to the research, the locally manufactured machine used to grind the corn into dough food wears off faster into the dry maize, thus contaminating it.

A study by two lead researchers at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has revealed that consumers of corn-related foods risk contracting all kinds of cancers.

The research was undertaken by Prof. Kwofie, who is the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering (former) of the College of Engineering, and Dr. Anthony Andrews (now Professor), the Head of Department (former) for Materials Engineering.

The study found that the metals used for the milling plates usually wear off when the food products are being grinded.

This, the study said, opens consumers to the risk of contracting cancer, since the metals contain 'iron overloads' which are poisonous.

Locally-manufactured corn mill plates

The researchers also warned that people who consume ‘ewor kple’ stand a greater risk of tempering with their health compared to eaters of banku because the metal wears off faster into the dry maize processed by the milling plates manufactured mainly by local artisans from Suame Magazine in Kumasi or Kokompe in Accra.

The study by the two researchers was done in two folds and published in 2003 and 2011 respectively in the KNUST journal.

In the first publication, the study compared the local milling plates with that of foreign ones, and found out that the local ones wore off 10 times more than the foreign ones.

It further disclosed that although the local artisans had the skill to produce the plates, they lacked the scientific knowledge and method of processing it.

In an interview with the Mirror, lead researcher, Prof. Samuel Kwofie, said it is the poisonous metal, called 'iron overloads', in the milling plates that leads to all kinds of cancers.

He warned that if these 'iron overloads' are not expelled from the body, it could cause damage to the human system.

 From a technical or metallurgical standpoint, the corn mill plates are made of low quality cast iron which have  low hardness and wear resistance.

 When these plates move together to grind the corn, they end up wearing off at a faster rate than expected causing the iron overloads to mix with the food.

Click CORN MILL FINDING to access the full report. The report also discusses how to solve this potentially lethal problem.

Credit: YEN.COM.GH

Visit our HOME PAGE for more interesting stuff!

Comments

Post a Comment

See Also

Alternate Building Materials Used in The Construction Industry

PC: theconstructor.org Alternate building materials are those which can be used economically by replacing the conventional building materials. Alternate building materials are made from waste products and thus they minimize environmental pollution. These alternate building materials can be used when they meet their respective specifications in the code of practice. Here are some novel construction materials and technology, with some briefly discussed: Aluminum Bitumen Materials Soil Conditioning Agents Tempered Glass Crumb Rubber Fiber Reinforced Polymer Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics Bamboo reinforced plastics Ferro-cement Polyester Fibers ALUMINIUM sound-proof-aluminium-construction. PC: theconstructor.org More than 3000 commercialized applications. 35 percent aluminum produced is used in construction. Non-Corrosive. High durability and low maintenance. Can be alloyed. Ductile and malleable. Aesthetically attractive. Applications of Aluminum In...
6 comments
More Here»

New 'Artificial Leaf' That Converts Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel

Scientists have created an “artificial leaf” to fight climate change by inexpensively converting harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) into a useful alternative fuel. The new technology, outlined in a paper published on November 4, 2019, in the journal Nature Energy, was inspired by the way plants use energy from sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into food. “We call it an artificial leaf because it mimics real leaves and the process of photosynthesis,” said Yimin Wu, an engineering professor at the University of Waterloo who led the research. “A leaf produces glucose and oxygen. We produce methanol and oxygen.” Making methanol from carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global warming, would both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a substitute for the fossil fuels that create them. The key to the process is a cheap, optimized red powder called cuprous oxide. An hour-long chemical reaction creates the engineered red powder that is the key to new technology to tur...
Post a Comment
More Here»

Non-stick surface technology

By Hilda Kafui Nuworku [3min read] Non-stick is a surface engineered to reduce the ability of other materials to stick to it. Non-stick is often used to refer to surfaces coated with Polytetrafluroethylene (PTFE),  but in the 21st century other coatings have been marked as non-stick, such as anodized aluminum,  ceramics, cast iron, carbon steel and many others. Cast iron, carbon steel, cast aluminium and steel cookware may be seasoned by applying fat to the surface and heating to polymerize the fat. This produces a dry hard smooth, hydrophobic coating, which is non-stick when food is in it. Polytetrafluroethylene is a synthetic fluoropolymer or tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications. Its well known brand is Teflon® , by Chemours,  a polymer company. PTFE molecular structure. PC: susbtech.com Properties of PTFE: It's a fluorocarbon solid, with a high molecular weight. It's hydrophobic due to the high electronegativity of Fluorine. It ...
2 comments
More Here»

The 'thinking metal': Shape Memory Alloy

Nitinol wires. PC: Wikpedia By Francis Agyemang, Member of the Editorial Team, MATESA KNUST We are the intelligent metal alloys !!! Yes! People prefer to call us shape memory alloys and it is the name we well deserve. We never forget our shape when thermal or mechanical load is exerted on us. Once the load is removed, we regain our pre-deformed shape. Our thermal deformation is very unique, unlike other metals, we deform under low temperatures and regain our shapes upon heating. Our effect (shape memory effect) was first discovered in an alloy of gold and cadmium (AuCd) by Swedish physicist Arne Olander in 1932. 2D view of nitinol's crystalline structure during cooling/heating cycle The two most prevalent smart alloys are copper-aluminium-nickel (CuAlNi) and nickel-titanium ( Nitinol). Though we have many uses and potential applications, we are commonly used in mending broken bones and making of dental braces. A nitinol paperclip bent and recovered aft...
Post a Comment
More Here»

Vibranium - The Wonder of Wakanda

Black Panther wearing Vibranium suit. PC: ucf.edu If you've ever thought that the Vibranium metal used in the Black Panther movie is a real material, you're possibly mistaken. What is Vibranium? Sourced from a meteorite that landed in Wakanda many centuries ago, Vibranium provides the superpower in the main character’s suit, absorbing energy and redistributing it. Vibranium (/vaɪˈbreɪniəm/) is a fictional metal appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, noted for its extraordinary abilities to absorb, store, and release large amounts of kinetic energy. Mined only in Wakanda, the metal is associated with Black Panther, who wears a suit of vibranium, and with Captain America, who bears a vibranium-steel alloy shield which has never been reproduced. Real-world Material In 2016, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies developed a real-world smart composite material that they named Vibranium. The lightweight carbon fiber material for the Hyperloop ...
Post a Comment
More Here»

The next graphene? Shiny and magnetic, a new form of pure carbon dazzles with potential!

Researchers believe films of U-carbon consist of stacks of undulating layers, tiled with six- or 12-atom rings and bound together by covalent bonds.  [7 min] A “happy accident” has yielded a new, stable form of pure carbon made from cheap feedstocks, researchers say. Like diamond and graphene, two other guises of carbon, the material seems to have extraordinary physical properties. It is harder than stainless steel, about as conductive, and as reflective as a polished aluminum mirror. Perhaps most surprising, the substance appears to be ferromagnetic , behaving like a permanent magnet at temperatures up to 125°C—a first for carbon. The discovery, announced by physicist Joel Therrien of the University of Massachusetts in Lowell on 4 November here at the International Symposium on Clusters and Nanomaterials, could lead to lightweight coatings, medical products, and novel electronic devices. Therrien’s talk elicited both excitement and caution among the dozens of researchers...
Post a Comment
More Here»

WHAT MINDSET HAVE YOU?--By Isaac Asiedu

As Henry Ford said, ‘‘W hether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right ’’ . Whatever your mindset is, it affect s  you. Your mindset is the lens through which you perceive the world. And th is lens affect s  how you live and the choices you make every day. The quality of your life is defined by the quality of your mindset. Your life can never get any better than your mindset. Your mind is a powerful thing and the stories you tell yourself and the things you believe about yourself can either prevent change from happening or allow new skills to blossom. According to Carol Dweck, a researcher at Stanford University, there are two types of mindset and the difference between these two mindsets and how they impact our performance are explained below : The first mindset is the fixed mindset .   S tudents with this mindset believe that their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that is that, and th...
4 comments
More Here»

Personality of The Week: Mr Asare Bediako

Asare Bediako - POTW On today's Personality Dialogue train we meet a very fine gentleman who is also the Rep for  his class - Metallurgical Engineering 1. He shares with us his knowledge and experience. Kindly enjoy the interaction. Who is Mr Asare Bediako?  Asare Bediako is a positive young gentleman who is self-motivated and passionately aspires to make a change in society. He is strongly interested in Youth Activism, Entrepreneurship and Leadership. What was your experience like in secondary school? I attended Adventist SHS in Bantama. It was a great and quite an interesting place to be. I was famously tagged "The king of Latin," because I always loved and used Latin quotes in all formal speeches I made. Metallurgical Engineering. Were you given the programme or you really wanted to do it? What informed your decision if you chose it? My dream program was Pharm D. I was not interested in metallurgy when it was first offered me; I had no passion to offer t...
2 comments
More Here»

Introduction to Glass Science and Technology

Technological History The presence of glasses in our everyday environment is so common that  we rarely notice their existence. Our current casual attitude toward the family of materials known as glasses has not always existed. Early Egyptians considered glasses as precious materials, as evidenced by the glass beads found in the tombs and golden death masks of ancient Pharaohs. The cave-dwellers of even earlier times relied on chipped pieces of obsidian , a natural volcanic glass, for tools and weapons, i. e., scrapers, knives, axes, and heads for spears and arrows. Humans have been producing glasses by melting of raw materials for thousands of years. Egyptian glasses date from at least 7000 B.C. Ancient Egyptian glass beads. PC: Science News How did the first production of artificial glasses occur? One scenario suggests the combination of sea salt (NaCl) and perhaps bones (CaO) present in the embers of a fire built on the sands (SiO 2 ) at the edge of a saltwat...
Post a Comment
More Here»