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h4ck3rm1k3

HI there,

In researching about the CEB, I found also a Briquette Press,

they press waste into Briquettes for burning.

I know in the balkans they also use cow dung for making Briquettes to burn.

Anyone has an idea how to make the CEB process be modified to press Briquettes?

See also :http://home.fuse.net/engineering/ewb_project.htm

http://www.icatis.org/node/134

kirk_wallace

My first guess is, the CEB presses from the bottom, so one could change the ram to a waffle pattern. This should give you a biomass brick that can be broken into briquettes. Actually a waffle plate might be inserted into the feeder so that shorter briquettes could be made. The output is still a CEB sized brick, but the waffle plate is removed and put back into the feeder for each brick. Or was there something else you where concerned about?

I suppose the biomass could also be extruded.

--
Kirk Wallace
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/
http://www.wallacecompany.com/E45/index.html
California, USA

h4ck3rm1k3

Sounds like great ideas Kirk! So you think it could be retrofitted.

What I saw in the designs was using a big level and making it from wood, maybe a lever system could be used to reduce the costs of the main Hydraulic Cylinder.

for making biomass maybe we also need a shredding and or mixing operation for the biomass before it is pressed. The lifetrack does this for the dirt CEB press, but will that be optimal, I am thinking about a coveyer belt system.

Also what about making papercrete, will pressing the parts help that in reenforcing them? can the papercrete be used to stick the bricks together.

Here is a picture of the cowdung house with the cow dung briquettes seen in Brod, Kosovo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brod,_Kosovo)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arianit_Brod_image151.jpg

4ndy

A very simple type of machine that can be used for this is the ceta/cinva ram, a small lever-operated machine, which while typically fabricated out of welded plate steel for CEB, could probably work in aluminium or even plastic (with steel joints and fasteners) for some biomass briquettes due to the lower compression required.

When I get round to it I might draw up a 3D-printable version (which could then be cast in metal if need be), unless someone else wants to hit that first.

h4ck3rm1k3

oh nice. that looks very simple. thanks.

Well i just wonder what the minimum amount of pressure needed is and what types of levers are needed. Anyone have the math!

Beluga

An open source lever operated CEB press design is available from OSRLiving: http://www.osrliving.org/wiki/index.php?title=Manual_CEB_Press
It has been built by some British guys: http://openeland.org/2012/10/open-e-land-summer-camp-2012-review/
http://openeland.org/2012/08/our-first-compressed-earth-brick/
http://openeland.org/ceb-press/

The OSRLiving forum is currently down, unfortunately, but here is the cached thread.
I'm not sure, if Metz also managed to build one.

4ndy

"wonder what the minimum amount of pressure needed is"
...depends what you're compressing of course, and how fast you want the blocks to burn. Chopped hay doesn't need a very rigid machine to squash it, but some other biomass might require all-metal parts.
It'll probably be easy to define how much pressure a lever can exert before it warps or breaks, but figuring out requirements for biomass of different consistencies is probably a bit complicated, and if I had the option I'd probably just build a multipurpose all-steel CEB press like theirs that would be overkill for the likes of sawdust and bullshit.

Beluga: thanks for the link, seems I've read their design before but forgotten about it, sad that it's all in inches.

h4ck3rm1k3

and how much pressure do we need for CEB? Do we really need 4000 psi hydraulics? the suppliers say that it might be too much and 3k might be enought, anyone have experience with that?
mike

charliehill

here is the procee flow of briquetting press. maybe it is what you need. it could process coal, charcoal, gypsum, quick lime, etc.

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