[Stoves] Jatropha Briquette Information

[Richard Stanley]

Anna, 
Thanks for your enquiry but we have not tested Jatropa per se.   I am confident though, that somewhere in one of the above copied list serves/newsgroups, there is the answer to your questions about Jatropa combustion and emissions..

As far as its use in briquette making –of the wet process ambient temp low pressure type which we extoll–, it is both tempting resource and likely to be a very problematic one...  While the cake  can serve as a fuel in its own right, if it is symbolic of the other types of seed cakes expellate we have attempted to use, it can cause  problems when added into the mix of wet pulped agro residues, and compressed / dewatered, into a briquette,  in the usual fashion.

 The reason is that the the residual adhered oil in said cake tends to lubricate  the otherwise   tightly compacted,  elastically deformed, and randomly aligned, interlocking  fibers --which do the real work of binding of the briquette. The resulting briquettes are mushy and weak even after weeks of drying in the open (sunny) air. The same blends-- without such seedcake additives-- typically dry to ambient humidity in a few days under the same climatic conditions.   
Of course lowering the proportion of the expellate will have better results...I unfortunatley do not have any numbers on this though. 

What I know you can do, is use the "foots" of the oils -the "oily chunky mix of saturated bits of the plant which managed to get through the seive and settle out of the oil. This stuff is otherwise useless. It always accumilates on the bottom of the oil collection tray and the floor of such pressing operations. It is useful to briquetters however when they dip their   already-dried briquettes in it <to a depth of  about 1/4th their height for a few seconds. That will consumme about 1-3 cubic cm of the material.  Provided that the other ingredients and prep process has been done correctly, a very nice quick-igniting --yet still structurally integral-- briquette is the result.

On the issue of jatropa combustion and emissivity:
I was in contact with ITDG (UK) on production of Jatropa in Central America, in March of this year. In that exchange they cited this report 

> From: "Rebecca Clements" <rclement at itdg.org.pe>
> Date: March 9, 2010 1:48:22 PM PST
>  RE: Project in Nicaragua
> 
>  
> On the Jatropha work in Central America, this was a review of the
> impacts of small-scale bioenergy initiatives on livelihoods carried out
> for the DFID PISCES project (www.pisces.or.ke) and funded jointly by the
> FAO. 
> The report can be found here: 
> http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/aj991e/aj991e00.HTM

I do not know if there was serious discussion about use of it in briquettes though.. just the use of the oil per se.

As well, there has been lots of discussion in the above stoves and biomass groups (ccy'd above)  about the use of  jatopa oil for stoves and lamps. Perusing their archives might turn up something for you. 
 
Please also feel free to use whatever you need from our 'Theory and Apps' manual: Just give Legacy Foundation a mention as the source...

I'm sorry for not being able to provide direct data for you but at least I hope this helps you to dig deeper...Anna. Kind regards to Prof. Amadei, and if he is still around, his former engineering student Michael Lupton, then head of CU's EWB Haiti project). 

Kindly ccy us all on your findings. Its amazing how little we really know about biomass utilisation for fuel, in our petroleum culture ..well maybe its not so amazing but its very much needed now, eh? 

Kind regards, 
Richard Stanley
www.legacyfound.org


 
On Sep 24, 2010, at 1:25 PM, Anna Segur wrote:

> Dear Mr. Stanley
>  
> I am writing on behalf of Engineering in Developing Communities at the University of Colorado.  Our founder, Bernard Amadei also established EWB which is listed as a partner on your website.  I saw your video on youtube regarding fuel briquette production at the Legacy Foundation.  Two of our graduate students are going to be working on a jatropha project in Guatemala that involves value added processing of the seedcake. The producer groups hope to make fertilizer and fuel briquettes. 
>  
> I saw on your website that there is a document The Theory and Applications From Around the World, that we are interested in obtaining to find out research precedent regarding jatropha briquette emissions and combustion testing (if there is any).   If it would be possible to share this information to serve as a foundation for the graduate students research project, we would greatly appreciate it. 
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Anna Segur
> Program Manager
> Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities
> www.edc-cu.org
> 428 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0428
> Tel: 303-492-5606
> Skype: ASegur
>  

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