Rediseño, construcción y automatización de una máquina para la fabricación de briquetas a partir de biomasa

Abstract

The objective of this degree work was to redesign, build and automate a machine to manufacture briquettes with different types of biomass without the use of a binder and to determine their respective calorific value. For this, an analysis of the current state of the briquetting machine was carried out and afterwards the redesign of the pneumatic system by adding devices that allowed the pressure control of the cylinders; in addition to the design and construction of the clamp-type electrical resistances that controlled the drying temperature during the biomass compaction process, later the machine was automated using a LOGO controller, adding a graphical interface to monitor and control the input and output variables of each process. Once everything was implemented, functional tests and experimentation were carried out to find the parameters of pressure, temperature and compaction time of coffee bean, rice husk, sugarcane-bagasse and barley husk. With the manufactured briquettes, the ASTM D-240 test was carried out to find its calorific value, concluding that the use of binders reduces this thermal characteristic by approximately 10%. Finally, as the coffee bean was the biomass with the highest caloric power (19.1396 MJ/kg), a test was carried out with the same product adding allophane nanoparticles, obtaining as a result an increase of 20% (23.1645 MJ/kg). To obtain better results of caloric power, it is recommended to control the percentage of humidity of the biomass and the concentration by weight of the nanoparticles.