[Stoves] BioBriquette testing

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Olof

Please contact Andi Michel at the ProBEC office in Mulanje (email address 
above) for some assistance.

You are correct, the tests are for stoves not fuels, however there is little 
point in burning a fuel in a stove for which it was not designed.

They have some capacity to burn different things and you might try out one 
or more of the stoves they have (in some numbers) at the office/workshop.

My best suggestion is to get a moisture content before burning it, and to 
work out how much heat is in it theoretically.  Then cook with various 
moisture contents in different devices and there will always be surprises - 
good and bad.

It is quite possible that you will find briquettes burn best when combined 
with wood fuel.

You may also find that the emissions from charcoal are significantly reduced 
when you add small briquettes because they provide the flames to ignite the 
CO.  You might have to raise the pot to get a combination of fuels to work 
better (provide flame-space).

Have fun!

Best regards
Crispin in Matsapha
(Swaziland)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Olof Nyström" <olof.nystrom at gmail.com>
To: <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 3:25 PM
Subject: [Stoves] BioBriquette testing


Hello all,

we are two engineering students from Sweden, now in Malawi,  and need some
help about fuel testing. We want to make fuel tests to compare different
biomass briquettes with charcoal and firewood (in terms of heat content/kg,
price/Joule etc). We are now thinking about possible ways to carry out these
tests.

We are planning to do something like a Water Boiling Test to make a
comparison, although this test is made to compare stoves and not fuels. Is
there any similar controlled standard tests that are more suited for testing
of fuels?

One problem we face is the comparison between charcoal and briquettes, since
we believe that the charcoal needs to be tested on a charcoal stove while
the briquettes are more suited for use in a firewood stove. To make a fair
comparison these stoves should have similar efficiency, and this may be a
problem. Anybody with experience on this topic?

Regards,

Olof Nyström
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