Design and Development of a Prototype Laboratory Scale Fecal Sludge Compost Pellet Making Machine

Select Volume / Issue:

• Volume 2,Issue 4, July 2015

Year:

2015

Type of Publication:

Article

Keywords:

Design, Compost, Pellets, Machine

Authors:

Amoah, J. Y.; Djokoto, F.; deGraft, A.; Abdulai, I.; Dzamboe, P.; Selormey, G.

Journal:

IJRAS

Volume:

2

Number:

4

Pages:

179-185

Month:

July

Note:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Abstract:

Utilization of compost manure has been limited due to challenges relating to handling and transport, consistency of application and availability of specialized mechanized equipment. To overcome some of these challenges, a machine for the pelletization of compost from fecal sludge was designed, fabricated and successfully tested at the Mechanical Engineering Workshop and Laboratory of CSIR Institute of Industrial Research in Ghana. This machine is an extruder type of pellet making equipment with key components made up of a hopper, extruder barrel, die, and cutter. Optimal batch size was 20 kg at which the maximum throughput capacity was 96.6 kg/hr, a pelleting capacity of 88.3 kg/hr at an efficiency of 91.4%. Average cylindrical pellet diameter was 7.6 mm and length of 16.88 mm. The durability of the pellets based on the measured Pellet Durability Index ranged between 85.6 and 92.3 % with an average of 88.7 %. Average bulk density of pellets was 0.91 g/cm3 compared to that of unpelleted fecal sludge compost which was 0.65 g/cm3.

Full text: IJRAS_275_Final.pdf [Bibtex]