Ignition and Burning Rate of Water Hyacinth Briquettes

Aims: The study was conducted to investigate the effect of compaction pressure, binder proportion and particle size on ignition time and burning rate of fuel briquettes produced from a mixture of water hyacinth and plantain peel.
Study design: The experimental design for this study was 5x3x4 Randomized Complete Block Design.
Place and Duration of Study: The samples were collected from Port-Harcourt, Niger Delta, located between latitudes 4º 2´ and 6º 2´ North of the equator and longitudes 5º 1´ and 7º 2´ East of the Greenwich meridian, between Jan 2009 and March 2010. The laboratory work was conducted in the Mechanical Engineering Department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Methodology: The experimental design for this study was 5x3x4 Randomized Complete Block Design. This study involved three particle sizes of dried and ground water hyacinth (D1, D2, D3) at levels 0.5, 1.6 and 4mm, pressure (P1, P2, P3, P4) at level 3.0, 5.0, 7.0 and 9.0MPa with plantain peels were used as binder (B1, B2- B3, B4, B5) in the ratio of 10, 20, 30 40 and 50% by weight of residue. They were arranged in Randomize Complete Block Design with three replications per experiment.
Results: The effect of particle size, binder ratio and compaction pressure on burning rate of the briquettes varied from 0.92±0.03 g-1min (D1) to 2.66± 0.05 g-1min (D3), 1.57±0.11g-1min (B5) and 2.30±0.15g-1min (B1) and1.68±0.11 g-1min (P4) and 2.13±0.13 g-1min respectively.
Conclusion: It could be concluded that Increased in compaction pressure, binder ratio and decreased in particle size caused decrease in the burning rate but elongated the ignition time of the briquettes.