22 May -24 May

Eco-Fuel Africa

I can't quite remember what day it was last week but on one of the days from Mon-Wed a few of us who are working with Sanga Moses went to the place where they make charcoal briquettes out of bio waste. Sanga really is going to have an enormous impact with this venture. It is fun to be working with him. I am currently making a PowerPoint presentation with animations depicting the charcoal briquette making process which we will attach to his application for a grant to help develop this machine. 

If any blog readers out there have a knack for engineering and know of a good solution to this bulky hard to make machine, let me know.... I'm toying with an idea using some sort of caulking gun technology to compress the mud into briquettes and remove the moisture one at a time that any person could use to make their own briquettes. The problem is finding anything that even resembles a caulking gun around here. 

Here's Rebecca filling the cylinders with char-mud. 

Next, close the lid and pump the car jack which lifts a plate full of rods/pistons up against the mud and the top plate compacting the briquettes and extracting moisture. 

Finally, open the top and continue pumping the car jack till the compressed briquettes come out of the top ready for sun drying. 

 

Rebecca likes playing in the mud. Pretty sure the kids in the background think we're crazy. And I'm pretty sure they're right. 

Sanga took us to a plot of land where they are planning on training people. They are also growing corn on the land using excess char-powder (from bio-waste) as fertilizer. 

Stewart and Rebecca also pictured.