FOCUS : RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

Project: Low cost charcoal making from waste biomass and its effective utilsation

Funded By: Science and Society Division, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India 

Duration: September 2004 - August 2007

The project was conceived as an R & D project for local level value addition to biomass which is the major source of energy and abundantly available in rural areas. The energy potential of the biomass remains largely untapped. The project developed charcoal makers that cleanly and efficiently convert biomass into useful clean commercial energy (charcoal). Considering the gradual acceptance of biomass gasifiers the project also developed designs for charcoal gasifiers anticipating their acceptance as well.  

The charcoal making experiments were conducted in the premises of Gramavidya, a partner NGO of the project, NGO located at Sidaganahally village in Bangalore rural district. The charcoal making demonstration unit was set up in a sericulture site in Vijayapura, Bangalore rural district. The charcoal gasifier was tested in the premises of R.V. Engineering College, Bangalore. The following were the prototypes developed under the project: 

-          Charcoal kiln (8 kg of wood per batch)

-          Charcoal kiln (40 kg of wood per batch)

-          Charcoal kiln (80 kg of wood per batch)

-          Charcoal Gasifier (6 kg / hr)

 The technology development phase consisted of developing designs of charcoal kilns of different capacities, finding productive use of the energy content in the volatiles and developing & testing the designs of charcoal gasifiers.  The charcoal kilns have demonstrated that it is possible to productively utilize the heat content in the volatiles. New applications for utilization of thermal heat can thus be conceived. Additionally the provision of the heat exchanger in the charcoal kiln would ensure extraction of the maximum amount of heat, thus increasing the heat utilization efficiency of the operations.

The project was done under the supervision and active involvement of Prof K S Jagadish, Co-Investigator, Professor, PG studies, Department of Civil Engineering, RV College of Engineering, Bangalore and Chairman of Gramavidya, a NGO located near Bangalore. The charcoal gasifier was tested by final year engineering students as a part of their project work. Technical support and linkages were also forged with Dr. Sree Kumar, faculty Chemical Engineering department Karnataka Regional Engineering College (KREC).