Technological improvement of biomass briquetting machine

• Grant number: 09/52194-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: December 01, 2009
• End date: March 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Alberto Luengo
• Grantee: Carlos Alberto Luengo
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In this Project it is proposed the study of the densification of sugar cane bagasse, sugar cane trash and also Elephant Grass with the purpose to improving the performance of screw briquetting press. This project aims to solve the technological troubles identified during densification of those biomasses kind. The main ones being the excessive wear on the screw and die, and the high resistance to densification which result in briquettes with low mechanical resistance and in undesired fluctuations in the press feeding system. In this study several materials wear resistant will be selected and characterized through tribological testing after which will be fitted into the Briquetting machines to determine the wear coefficient in order to select the coatings wear resistance with larger viability. The residues densification study will consist of two stages, in the first an experimental device will be built to determine the viscoelastic properties of the biomass samples with different pre-treatment conditions (moisture, granulometry, temperature), the data obtained in this stage will be used in the second stage to determine the best operational conditions and the optimum screw/die configuration. As results of this research a higher quality briquettes will be obtained using the above biomass. And a diminish of the wear on screw and die in the briquetting press. (AU)