[Stoves] cattle dung processing on a locally sustainiable small scale basis

[Richard Stanley]

Friends of dung, 

In Miumbuni Village, about 2.5 hrs east of Nairobi (along the Mombassa highway), and a 9 mile slog north off road,  are two of some the the most dedicated experienced and resrouceful briquette training teams one could hope to know. Husband and wife, Mary and Francis  Kavita, were faced with the challenge of making fuel briquettes from only cattle dung for a group of Masaii about four years ago.

Here is what hey came up with;
1)  soak the dung and crumble it a bit manually,  to form a chunky mash.
2) slosh this mash  around in water in a seive (they used an old,  very traditional and ubiquitous woven cane  seiving tray common to  many  traditional cultures: Its used to clean grains such as rice and beans ) replenishing the water until it comes clean.

The resulting fibers are great for combustion in the briquetted form ( they form a good structural matrix which can encapsulate up to  50% sawdust rice husks or other granular material as well —y crude volume comparison—,or they burn well by themselves), 
3) and ….the collected  wash off water turns to  be great as a liquid fertilizer. 

It appears to be a fra better solution than  the reverse osmosis proposed by one ivy league school whose engineering faculty blithly ignored these little villagers in their pursuit for academic excellence but no matter: The real word is getting out quite nicely thanks to the internet and hopefully your all as well in sharing their story.

It remains for those inclined to do real science now: How to properly assay what they have acomplished:  what are the metrics are for “clean water”  vs residual fertiliser content; what is the optimium processing time for x input vs output . What are the valuse do he fertiliser vs fuel output and what are the economics of work at that  scale and how to scale it up ..well now,  thats for  you all to discuss and refine but please do not forget to relate the  story about them in your subsequent  communications. This is the real stuff of development, eh ? 

Thanks in advance for playing it forward. 

Disfruita  todos

Richard Stanley
 

On Sep 29, 2015, at 6:25 PM, Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear stovers,
India is the world's largest producer of milk. The dairy industry also
produces a huge quantity of cattle dung. Dung cakes are traditionally
used as domestic fuel and also for cremating dead bodies. But they
have the disadvantage of not burning as vigorously as wood. Dung also
has a very high ash content. Can we devise some method of processing
it to increase its fuel value?
Yours
A.D.Karve
***
Dr. A.D. Karve

Chairman, Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd (www.samuchit.com)

Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

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