Development of a novel integrated hopper briquette machine for sustainable production of pellet fuels

Abstract

Water hyacinth (WH) is a rapidly growing seaweed and a potential renewable energy source. WH biomass can be processed and compressed to briquettes for use in cooking and heating coal power plants. Biomass is typically processed and compressed using conventional briquette machines (CBM). The inability of the CBM to produce the desired amount of briquette fuel within the time frame provided has necessitated the development of an innovative and versatile hopper briquette machine (HBM). This machine is capable of producing billets from abundant biomass in the tropics. HBM as an adaptable machine is employed for the sustainable production of solid fuel. For the first time, this study targeted the development of HBM to address the problem associated with CBM. The HBM's central components include a base frame, feed hopper, barrel, thrust bearing, dies, heating element, and others. The efficiency of the novel machine and production capacity were computed to be 85% and 120 kg/h, respectively. At the second run, the HBM produced 30 billets in 20 minutes. The basic properties of the briquette fuel and billet comply with those in the literature. The billet generated can be utilized as solid fuels in local bakeries, restaurants, domestic and industrial settings.