[Stoves] Bagasse Briquette Work

Tue Oct 12 12:25:21 CDT 2010

Dear Ken,
I had almost replied to Miss Tiwari, giving her information about our work
with sugarcane trash, but she specifically mentioned in her posting that she
was not interested in carbonised briquettes. Therefore I kept quiet.
Yours
A.D.Karve

2010/10/12 Ken Boak ken.boak at gmail.com

> Dear Miss Tiwari,
>
> I believe DR. A.D. Karve of ARTI found an effective means of making
> charcoal from sugar cane trash,  which could then be ground and formed into
> briquettes with a suitable binder.
>
> I am not sure whether Dr. Karve went on to try this process with bagasse -
> but the technique may be applicable.
>
> I am not aware of a non carbonising method for processing bagasse into
> briquettes - however others on this list,(notably Richard Stanley et
> al.) have experimented with simple presses to make "holey" briquettes from
> assorted raw biomass.
>
> http://www.bioenergylists.org/taxonomy/term/243
>
> http://www.repp.org/discussion/stoves/200109/msg00002.html
>
>
> Carbonising the waste is very often the approach used, because it drives
> off moisture and volatiles and leaves an embrittled product which is much
> more easily mechanically processed, with a more uniform composition and
> calorific value. Plus with the advantage that the energy density is much
> improved.
>
> The energy lost in the volatiles during the carbonisation process can be
> recouped for drying or torrefying the waste.
>
> There is rising interest in biochar, you might wish to look at the BEK
> biochar reactor which could be used to produce charred bagasse on a pilot
> scale.
>
>
> http://www.gekgasifier.com/2009/08/apl-releases-bek-biochar-experimenters-kit-new-videos/
>
> regards
>
>
> Ken Boak
>
>
>
>
> Try this link
>
> http://www.bioenergylists.org/taxonomy/term/31
>
>
> Here is the text that describes Dr. Karve's process
>
> Second question: The process described is for sugae cane trash -- leaf --
> should it also work on bagasse??
>
> Here is some of the text:
>
>
> The Ashden Awards, 2005
>
> First Prize - 2002
>
> Converting sugar cane trash into domestic fuel.
>
> Appropriate Rural Technology Institute, India
>
> Summary of the Project
>
> Every year the sugar cane fields of Maharashtra State in India produce a
> staggering four and half million tonnes of leaf waste. As the cane is
> harvested, the farmer is left with a mass of leaves known as 'sugar cane
> trash'. The leaves are full of lignin and silica, so don't decompose easily
> and are no good as food for cows. Traditionally, the answer has been to get
> them out of the way by burning them.
>
> The Appropriate Rural Technology Institute of India (ARTI) has come up with
> another solution. It has developed a special kiln that puts the leaves to
> good use by converting them to charcoal powder. The powder is then formed
> into briquettes that can be used as fuel for domestic stoves. ARTI
> estimates that a rural family could make 100Kg of char-briquettes a day and
> so earn 3,000 Rupees (approx £35) a week by selling them on.
>
> Charring the sugar cane trash in kilns instead of burning it in the open is
> helping to keep the skies clear and is reducing unnecessary carbon
> emissions.
>
> ARTI has also developed a new, improved, cooker that can use these
> briquettes as fuel. This 'Sarai' cooker uses only 100g of briquettes to
> cook food that would normally need 3Kg of firewood.
>
> The aim of this project is to increase the production of briquettes from
> sugar cane trash and to popularise the use of briquettes for cooking.
>
> The need for the project
>
> Charcoal has always been a favourite fuel for cooking with in Maharashtra.
> It burns cleanly, produces little smoke and has traditionally been cheaper
> than petrol products like kerosene. In the 1950s, the government of India
> banned charcoal production and subsidised the price of kerosene in order to
> try and stop deforestation. The ban on charcoal making (from wood) is still
> in place, but in 2000 the Government reduced the subsidy on kerosene,
> forcing people to return to using wood as fuel. The production of charcoal
> from sugar cane trash therefore provides a much-needed source of cheap
> fuel. The briquettes are expected to displace the use of about 30 times
> their weight in wood. This could mean saving about 15,000 hectares of dry
> deciduous forest a year in Maharashtra alone.
>
> As mentioned above, sugar cane leaves are extremely tough and won't
> decompose easily. They are long and springy and the farmer has to get them
> out of the way before ploughing and replanting can begin. The burning of
> four and a half million tonnes of sugar cane trash in Maharashtra each year
> produces a massive amount of smoke and atmospheric pollution.
>
> Key features of the project and technical information
>
> The first kiln that ARTI built was fixed to the ground, but more recent
> versions are portable and can be taken to the fields as they are ready for
> clearing. This is an important improvement as collecting up the trash and
> taking it to a kiln is not economically viable.
>
> The leaves are packed tightly into lidded stainless steel cans. Seven of
> these are loaded into the metal drum that forms the body of the kiln, and
> supported by a grate. Sugar can trash is burned below the grate and used to
> fire the charring process. Flue gases are forced to move between the cans
> on their way to the chimney, transferring their heat as they go.
>
> Being starved of oxygen in the lidded cans, the cane trash is forced to
> pyrolise rather than burn as it heats up, and so it turns into a mass of
> charcoal. An innovative twist to the kiln design is that a small hole in
> the bottom of each can allows gases produced in the process of pyrolysis to
> escape at the level of the grate and be burned as fuel. This reduces
> atmospheric pollution and means that the charring process is exceptionally
> efficient.
>
> It takes 45 minutes to fire one load of trash. At this rate one kiln,
> working full time, would take 40 days to char the trash from a one-hectare
> cane field. The farmers are generally in a hurry to get their fields
> cleared, so the project usually puts 10 kilns into a field at a time. The
> harvest lasts about five months, and after that the kilns can be used to
> char other things like wheat straw and leaf litter.
>
> At the end of a firing, the cans contain a charcoal mass that needs to be
> pulverised with a light roller and then mixed with a liquid binder before
> being formed into briquettes. Starch paste, made from the floor sweepings
> of flour mills, cattle slurry or sugar cane juice can all be used as
> binders. The resulting charcoal paste is pushed into briquette moulds or
> extruded from a hand-operated briquette extruder, and left out in the sun
> to dry.
>
> Briquette making can only be done when the sun is strong enough to dry the
> briquettes. Good sun usually lasts for about 35 weeks a year. During this
> time a family could make enough briquettes to earn about 100,000 rupees,
> equivalent to the annual salary of an urban white-collar worker. This would
> clearly make a dramatic improvement to the quality of life for a rural
> family.
>
> As mentioned above, ARTI has developed a new stove, the Sarai cooker, which
> uses the cane trash briquettes. The Sarai uses a neat system of three cans
> stacked inside a large cooking pot. A small amount of water at the bottom
> of the large pot quickly turns to steam and cooks the contents of the cans.
> Rice, beans and vegetables can be cooked in one go. The Sarai system has
> proved popular, and cookers are now being produced on a commercial basis in
> the city of Pune. They are marketed through a rural cooperative at a price
> of 350 rupees (about £5).
>
> At present the kilns are not being produced on a commercial basis because
> of their cost (one kiln costs about £250 to make), but are made on request
> by one manufacturer.
>
>
>
>
>
> Contact details
>
> Contact name: Dr A. D. Karve
>
> Address: 2nd Floor, Maninee Apartments, S. No 13, Dhayarigaon, Pune,
> Maharashtra 411041, INDIA
>
> Telephone: + 91 20 439 0348 / 4392284 / 5442217
>
> Fax: + 91 20 439 0348
>
> Email: adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.in<http://listserv.repp.org/mailman/listinfo/gasification_listserv.repp.org>
>
>
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>

-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *
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