Efficient Use of Bagasse as a Fuel in Canesugar Factories

Abstract

The biogas has been utilized as a source of energy tens of years ago. It is mainly used in sugar cane factories, in their boilers, for raising steam to provide the driving power for the crushing mills, turbo-generators...etc. It is also used, to some extent, in other disciplines of life e. g. manufacturing fibre board, news print paper, soil fertilizing, animal feeding... etc. In sugar cane factories, mill run biogases is fed to the boilers without any effort to reduce its relatively high moisture content, about 50% by weight. The use of partially dry biogases, no doubt, will have its influence on the plant efficiency and the net profit. Cheap drying processes were considered. Solar dryers were found very efficient but are slow. For huge biogases consumptions, as in the sugar cane factories, rotary spiral dryers using the boilers flue gases etc… found to cope with the rate of consumption and gave more than 60% dryness. The main features of the rotary spiral dryer are offered together with the technique of testing and method adopted in the analysis. Comments and suggestions for future work also included. The expected saving in biogases amounts to 211/238 ton mill run biogases, at 50% moisture, per crop season in the five sugar cane factories. This translated into its equivalent furnace oil amounts to 40736ton, per year, which is worth16.294 million Sudanese pounds, based on the 1987 furnace oil price at LS 400 per ton.