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ISSN Online: 2379-1748

7th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
SJR: 0.152 SNIP: 0.14 CiteScore™:: 0.5

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Clarivate CPCI (Proceedings) Scopus
May, 15-18, 2022 , Las Vegas, NV, USA

DEVELOPMENT OF IGNITION PELLETS FOR BIOMASS COOKSTOVES

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 287-292
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2022.ens.040854

Abstract

Ignition of cookstoves using solid biomass fuel can be difficult particularly in humid and cold weather. Many improved biomass cookstoves use biomass pellets as fuel. Ignition of these pellets can be even more challenging due to their high density. Generally, the fuel-bed of these pellets takes a few minutes to ignite even with the use of diesel, kerosene or any other liquid fuel. Besides, the emissions during the ignition period are high. This work reports development of ignition or starter pellets of suitable density to ignite a solid fuel bed in a cookstove. This is based on the fact that for ignition a low-density fuel is required but it must also burn at a rate such that it allows the bed to catch a flame before it is completely combusted.

In view of the above, ignition pellets have been developed in-house using a mixture of locally available sawdust and commonly available wax. The wax percentage by weight was varied from 30% to 50%. The density of ignition pellets is found to vary from 978 to 1002 kg/m3 for fine particles and 770 to 952 kg/m3 for coarse particles. These ignition pellets were found to get ignited in 1-3 s. Further, total combustion time for pellets of fine particles is in the range of 238 to 330 s, whereas coarse particle pellets of same dimensions got burnt fully in 209 to 213 s.