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Fuel Pellets from Bananas’ Peels to Partially Replace Charcoals
The Amizero Association is planning to establish a fuel pellet production unit to value the household waste collected in Kigali city, and according to IRST’s researchers, this will contribute to forest preservation.
According to Amizero Association, which collect and develops household waste in Kigali, the unit to manufacture the fuel pellet will have been put up in Nyarugenge (Kigali) before the end of this year. It will have the capacity of producing 2,000kg of fuel pellet per a day using 4,000kg of biomass as row materials.
As one could see during the experimental stage at IRST localized in the South of Rwanda, the process consist of drying the bananas peels first, then, carbonizing them in the barrels before grinding. It is from its powder, mixed with a little loam and water, they produce fuel pellet.
According to Florida Mukarubuga, the Executive Secretary of Amizero Association, every thing is ready to build the production unit. She says that money, equipment and the land are available.
“What is still missing is the certificate of environment impact which we have already asked from Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA),” she adds.
“Even though it is a long process to get the certificate, we hope in one month we will have had it as we fulfill all the requirements,” she says.
Positive Impact on the Environment
According to the researchers, once this unit is operational, the use of pellet fuel will contribute to the forest preservation in Rwanda. They justify it by saying that in terms of energy used in cooking, 1kg of biomass produced the same work as 1.5 kg of coal from 7.5 kilograms of dry wood.
Francis Dubois, the Project Manager of Walloon Centre of Agronomic Research at Gembloux University (Belgium) is the designer of this project. He was invited by Amizero Association and IRST for the experimental stage of this project.
He says: “The fuel pellet, as a substitute for charcoal in domestic cooking, offers considerable savings of timber: 1 kg of biomass can save 6 to 10 kg of timber.”
Fuel pellet use will also play a role in air pollution reduction since it is a renewable energy source among others.
“Our environment is a precious resource which we must preserve for future generations, and one way which can help is the use of fuel pellet in our day-to-day domestic cooking,” says P. Celestin Karangwa, one of the IRST researchers who had been working with Dubois during the experimental phase.
As Dubois says, the fuel pellets from bananas peels will also play a positive role in economic terms.
He says that in Ross Bethio (Senegal), the cost of cooking with fuel pellet was two times less than charcoal in 2004 whereas at Ndem (village located some 130km east of Dakar), heating bath dyeing with fuel pellets was five times less expensive than wood in 2006.
As far as Rwanda is concerned, Karangwa promises that once the production unity is operational, the coast of fuel pellet will be twice less than the charcoal’s one.
Senegal and Rwanda are only the two African countries where Dubois has transferred this technology from Gembloux University.
This project of manufacturing fuel pellet from bananas peels in Rwanda is funded by the European Union to preserve Rwandan forest and help the members Amizero Association overcome the poverty they face.
Oswald Mutuyeyezu
