Evaluation of Constitutive Conditions for Production of Sorghum Stovers Briquette

Abstract

Management of biomass waste is one of the problems faced in rural-urban area of developing countries. Engineering properties of biomass materials need to be evaluated in order to have design data for machines required for densification processes. This study was aimed at evaluating the constitutive conditions of densification of Sorghum stover. Selected physical and chemical properties of Sorghum stover were determined and the effects of constitutive conditions (particle size, moisture content, and pre heating temperature) on such parameters as stress at peak, strain at peak and energy at peak of Sorghum stover were studied. Relationship between process variables for densification process for the stover was established. A fabricated densification rig that consisted of a compression cylinder 32 mm diameter and110 mm height, and piston of 32 mm diameter and 250 mm length, was instrumented on a 300 kN UTM (Testometric SF-300-2041) combined with a temperature heating chamber (SIEMENS TLK-96). A 33 factorial was used to predict the effects of particle size, temperature and moisture content on the densification process for the stover. Data obtained were statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 21 software package. Results showed that Sorghum stover bulk density ranged from 170.000 to 170.267 kg/m3 and crude protein was estimated to be 5.03 %. Constitutive conditions had significant effects on the constitutive parameters at . Linear regression equations were used to predict the responses of the densification parameters. The fabricated densification rig is recommended for the determination of relevant parameters for other biomass materials.