Vol. 12, Issue 3 (2023)

Tamarindus indica L. commonly known as tamarind, is cultivated throughout country, except in the Himalayas and western dry regions. Tamarinds comprise of fruits with seeds enclosed within an encapsulated pod. Tamarind is one of the most important spice in Indian food due to its sweet and sour test. Tamarind fruit pulp has been an important culinary ingredient in India for a very long time. Almost all parts of the tree find some use or other in food, chemical, pharmaceutical and textile industries, and as fodder, timber and fuel. Knowledge of physical, chemical and frictional properties needed to analyze the behaviour of tamarind during handling and designing of processing equipments. In this context, the paper explored some physical, chemical and frictional properties of tamarind. Physical dimensions of whole and decorticated tamarind and its seed, moisture content, bulk density, true density, porosity, angle of repose, co-efficient of friction and pH were determined. All the experiments were carried out at 08 - 11% moisture content on dry basis and pH of tamarind was found 2.486. Average length breadth and thickness of whole and decorticated tamarind and its seed were found to be 89.83, 20.67 and 19.46 mm, 84.71, 15.92 and 15.95 mm, 12.24, 10.01 and 5.79 mm respectively. Bulk density, true density and porosity were found 613.01kg/m³, 872.81kg/m³ and 29.52% respectively. Angle of repose was found 71.11°. Among the average values of coefficient of friction, the maximum value of 0.596 was obtained for glass surface followed by mild steel. The higher value of coefficient of friction for tamarind fruits shows that these surfaces exert more friction to tamarind and minimum friction was experienced on wood and stainless steel.