Characterization and Evaluation of Mush Valley Coal for Its Application as A Domestic Energy Source
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Date
2018-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
The main goal of this study is to substitute domestic biomass fuel energy source by the presented
mush valley coal. To use it, a number of experiments were conducted before use in household
application. During the experimental work the proximate and ultimate analysis where carried out
through in different methods. The proximate analysis result shows the coal quality; from the
analysis the coal has an average moisture content of 19%, volatile matter of 31.34%, ash content of
11.58, fixed carbon value of 38.02%, and its calorific value of 4117 kcal/kg and also Hard Grove
Gridability Index values ranging between 45 and 64.3. Finally the proximate analysis result shows,
the Mush Valley coal is fall under the rank of lignite A to sub-bituminous B categories. In the
ultimate analysis the amount of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Sulfur and Oxygen were determined
by using CHNS/O analyzer. To use coals for domestic application, effective stove was designed,
fabricated and tested to evaluate the thermal performance of the stove. The design part of stove
focused on, the insulation around the combustion chamber, air inlet to ensure the accessibility of
sufficient air for the complete combustion of the fuel coal, and the integration of chimney to convey
flue gases away from the place of use. Water boiling tests were carried out in order to produce the
required data for evaluating the stoveās performance by calculating Specific Fuel Consumption,
Fire Power, Percent heat utilized and thermal efficiency. The performance evaluation shows that
average fire power of 9.7 KW, average specific fuel consumption of 0.765, average percent heat
utilized of 49 % and thermal efficiency of 58.3%. The efficiency of the results of the study, it can
be seen that the performance of the designed coal stove is better than the traditional three-stone
open fire reported to have efficiency of about 14-25%.
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Keywords
Mush Valley Coal, Domestic Energy Source, biomass fuel energy