Philippine E-Journals

Low-cost Rice Hull Carbonizer

Jonas Guinto

Discipline: Engineering

 

Abstract:

Rice is one of the country’s top agricultural products, and in milling this grain, its covering, the rice hull is discarded. Almost the entire rice hull is dumped and burned uncontrollably, emitting greenhouse gases, aggravating the problem of air pollution and global warming. Rice hull like other plant matter is composed of carbon. If burned in control conditions it will yield a solid carbonized matter or otherwise known as carbonized rice hull. A device made from discarded cans was made using simple hand tools with minimal metalworking skills. From an existing design of open type rice hull carbonizer from Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice), a control model was made. A total of 8 carbonizers with different designs were developed and tested. Results showed that the type that performed the highest in terms of percent yield and fastest rate of carbonization was the last type, Type 8. It had no noticeable unburned rice hull nor ash formation, which is a by-product that must be avoided by this carbonizer design. Gaseous emissions that indicate unburned combustible and volatile matter were also minimal compared to the other types. A more quantitative characterization of carbonized rice hull product and analysis of gaseous emissions is recommended.