[Stoves] Energy content cow dung

[Anand Karve]

Dear Bob,
I think that this topic should be of interest to everybody working on
biomass burning stoves. So instead of answering your query privately,
I address my answer to the entire list. Cattle, grazing outdoors, eat
mainly leafy and herbaceous material. They digest the carbophydrates
and proteins in the leaves. The dung consists mainly of lignin and
some of the bacteria and archaea. I therefore think that on dry weight
basis, the energy content of dung should be same as wood. Only its
energy density would be less.
Yours
A.D.Karve
On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 1:43 PM,  <rbtvl at aol.com> wrote:
> Some of the Maasai burn cow dung in their three stone fires and now burn it in our stove and report it is okay and they use less just like the wood burning folks.  I want to do some analysis and need a reasonable estimate of energy per mass of some average dung.  Googling I got about 75% of the energy density in hard wood fuel. Please send me info or sources on this. Don't need to bore the whole list so use my email.  Thanks
> Bob.  Maasai Stoves and Solar.
> Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Tanzania.
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***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)