Analysis of Agricultural Waste Briquettes as a Sustainable Charcoal Substitute in Kenyan Markets
Open Access
- Author:
- Yuan, Xiaochen
- Area of Honors:
- Elective Area of Honors - Engineering Design
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- John Gershenson, Thesis Supervisor
Darrell Velegol, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Kenya
charcoal
sustainability
design - Abstract:
- In Kenya, overdependence on wood and logging has caused a deforestation ban to preserve natural resources, but that has put a strain on people’s energy sources, especially for cooking charcoal. The need to manufacture a sustainable, clean burning, cheap, and appropriate charcoal-substitute briquette is needed to fill this market gap. It was determined that certain agricultural waste and byproducts such as sugarcane bagasse and corn cobs could be pyrolyzed to make a viable alternative charcoal briquette based on their fixed carbon values. The feasibility of a venture to locally produce these briquettes was analyzed for Kenya, and for all other Sub-Saharan African countries with Kenya as a reference point. It was determined that only Eswatini’s charcoal demand could be completely met with their agricultural waste. Although Kenya’s charcoal demand could not be completely met with agricultural waste, various sectors within the market could be fulfilled, with restaurants and poultry farms being able to fully transition to bio-waste briquettes, followed by 76% of rural households, 73% of schools, and 60% of urban households based on estimations from literature data. An estimation of the cost of briquette production was performed with the assumption that sugarcane bagasse was the only feedstock. While the briquettes cannot be priced as pre-deforestation ban levels of around KSh 85, the social venture can be profitable and an acceptable investment at a selling price of KSh 87.63 per 4-kg tin of charcoal.