HIMALAYAN BRIQUETTE
Smoke free, noise free and odour free
A simple, reliable and multi-use alternative energy for every household
Briquette is an alternative source of energy prepared from the all types of woody and leafy biomass including pine needles, and agricultural residues. This is the highly efficient source of energy having no health ailments and can be easily used for daily use in household level as a normal source of energy for cooking, boiling and heating purposes. In fact, briquette is a good replacement for fossil fuels such as kerosene oils, LPGs and traditional sources of energy like firewood, coal, and dung-cake.
Uses of Briquette:
1. Room Heating
2. Boiling water, milk, tea
3. Warming the children and newly delivered mother
4. Barbeque of meat, corn-cub etc.
5. Cooking meals (rice, pulses, curry, puddings etc.), roti and naan
6. Fuel for picnic and party purpose
How Briquette is Prepared?
Briquette is prepared from all types of woody and leafy biomass including pine needles, and agricultural residues. The biomass are put in the charring drum or pit and then burnt so as to produce the coal. Such produced coal is grinded into the powder and then mixed with 25-30% of Black or Red Soil as the binder and mixed with water then made into a paste. The mixture is then pressed in a die of definite size (13cm x 7.5cm). After sun drying the pressed mixture for some hours, briquette is prepared and is ready for use.
How to Use the Briquette?
In order to use the briquette, firstly ignite its one end, with a paper or in a gas, until it turns red (takes about a minute). Then transfer the briquette in its stove, made up of ceramic or steel/iron, in a way that the burnt part is downward. The briquette starts burning in its capacity in 4-5 minutes and there is no need of doing anything (igniting or blowing) after putting into stove.
Energy from Briquette
Usually a briquette of 375-400 gm burns for more than 90 minutes. An experiment conducted by Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) came up with following results:
| Weight of the briquette at the time of testing | 384 gm |
| Total burning time of briquette | 105 minute |
| Time required to cook 1 kg of rice | 50 minute |
| Time required to cook 250 gm of pulses | 21 minute |
| Time required to cook 500 gm of tomato | 24 minute |
Above result suggests that one briquette is sufficient to cook the meal (rice, pulses and curry) for a family having 3-4 members.
For the energy, experiments have shown that 1 kg of briquette gives about 18 MJ of energy suggesting one briquette of 375 gm produces 6.75 MJ of energy. This means, two liters water can be boiled in 20 min or one briquette can boil about 9 liters water.
What is the value of a piece of briquette (5”x3”)?
1. To spend a warm and pleasant night in winter
2. To warm the mother and newly born child twice
3. To boil 9 liters of water
4. To live in smoke free environment while cooking
5. To cook foods (50 minutes to cook 1 kg of rice; 21 minutes to cook 250 gm of pulses and 24 minutes to cook 500 gm of tomato)
Benefits of Briquette
1. It is the renewable source of energy
2. Good and reliable alternative source of energy in the situation of declining fossil fuel supply (Kerosene, LPG)
3. No health ailments
4. Cheap and readily available
5. Largely helps in environmental conservation
6. Easy to handle and use
7. Ash can be used in gardens and field
