Figure 1: Godar Engineerings building its first RH injector in 2005

Several years ago NAEF found one of our manufacturing colleagues working on a new contraption for metering and injecting rice husk into small rice mill and other furnaces. It wasn't till a year or more later when we saw this and other newer designed machines in use all across Rupandehi and other nearby districts did we realize how these ingenious and simple designed rice husk blower / injectors were having on in the rural puff/beaten rice mills. These mills are usually joined with a rice de-huskers and mills that provide the rice husk for the heating purposes. Years prior to their adoption we had observed that thet standard operating procedure for these mills was to have a young boy sitting by the traditional mills' furnaces and throw handfuls of rice husk into the furnace every 5 to 10 seconds. (It is the heat of which pops or puffs the rice). The poor combustion of the rice (it would land on a pile of burning ash and slowly combust) lead to the very common site of black smoke coming from these mills chimneys. With the advent of the simple mechanized metering/blowers the husk is injected by an air stream into the furnace/firebox and the burning is much more efficient and hotter and the resulting smoke is nearly white. There are obvious energy/rice husk savings from this and the mill owners will tell you so, but have not been able to communicate the exact savings. Additionally, there appears to be many manufacturers, as the 5 or so that we have seen in Rupandehi District, while performing the same duties, are all of different designs. Some with augers and others with agitators for metering the rice husk and with various styles of blowers and power sources.

Figure 2: Puffed rice mill near Lumbini

Thorough internet searches have not come up with any project or agency claiming responsibility for this technology adoption. Similar to the sawdust stoves situation, there were apparently no projects / NGOs that promoted this technology. It appears to have come by word of mouth from across the border. There in India, there have been programs in
to promote cleaner burning systems (fluidized bed, etc) for much, much larger industrial boilers and it could be that it was from these that the much smaller systems were reversed engineered by mill owners and the small workshops.

NAEF would like to be able to study this phenomena further to 1) understand the better the dissemination of this technology; 2) to disseminate more widely in throughout Nepal; 3) gauge the impact and savings on the environment; 3) include these in an national accounting of biomass energy use in Nepal and its potential for CDM inclusion.