World Journal of Engineering Research and Technology

Musabe Clement* and Mitsindo Rene

ABSTRACT

This research focuses on developing and evaluating the performance of low cost, low technology banana fiber and household waste based fuel briquettes as an alternative to the common use of wood fuels (charcoal and firewood) for domestic cooking applications in Ngoma district. The ever-rising high price of kerosene and cooking gas influence Ngoma district?s populations to use firewood and charcoal as cooking fuel, though the use of trees on making charcoals has been a major factor that contributes to the climate change. Thousands of tons of trees have been cut in Ngoma district and the trend is still going on, despite the efforts made by the government to stop people from this long rooted behavior of cutting trees for charcoal making. Banana plantation in Ngoma district occupies 80% of agriculture activities and around 65% of all arable land in the District is occupied by banana plantation. Banana is by far the dominant food crop in Ngoma district in terms of value of production consumption and socio-economic value, it is the most grown crop in Ngoma district on 23,000 hectares, though is the most consumed food across the district however after being pick up banana fiber still unused on the other hand banana fiber can be used as another source of making charcoal without causing hazards in the environment. In Ngoma district household waste are collected in Kibungo landfill and waste is composted in mixed fields mainly food residues from sweet potatoes, banana and cassava are habitually generated in a huge amount but most of waste are not recycled which causes environmental problems. Banana fiber and household wastes can save the district from becoming dry by being used in briquettes production, the mixer of household waste and banana fiber collected are sun dried and then mixed with water and the natural binders which include; sweet potato stems sap, banana stem pulp and cassava flour has been added to the mixer and finally by hands they are compressed into the mold to get proper briquette shapes. During this research, both desktop reviews of earlier studies and laboratory investigations of the developed food residue based fuel briquettes have been considered. Carbonized sweet potato, banana peels, cassava peelings (household waste) and banana fiber were mixed in different proportions with either sweet potato or banana stem pulp (1 or 2kgs) and later densified using a hand operated molder to develop the food residue based briquettes. The drop test method was used to determine the resilience of the produced briquettes to disintegrating forces in particular during transportation and storage. Given the amount of wastes from individual households and the amount of banana pseudo stems generated annually in Ngoma district and the amount of heating value these contain, fuel briquettes produced can be an alternative for the use of charcoal and firewood which will aid in securing a low cost, low medium technology in cooking applications.

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