Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Civil/Mechanical/Manufacturing Engineering
Amber Childs-Santos - Howard University
Grinding mills for dry biomass products play a very important role in Cameroon. Grinding mills are successful in the comminution of the various dry biomass products, but any improvements that can be made can lead to the savings of more than a billion francs CFA. In the creation of the various grinding mills, they were made specifically with a certain biomass product in mind. Over time people have slowly started using one machine for all dry biomass products. This has decreased the efficiency of the grinding mill’s performance because of the wear and tear done to the machine. The overall goal is to identify the different comminution mechanisms and identify which dry biomass product is best milled by each grinding mill. A thorough literature review was conducted of the diverse grinding mills and their comminution technologies. A list of the most important parameters to consider was created which included energy consumption, capacity rate, particle size, and grinding efficiency. Once all of the prerequisite work was done the next step was to view the various grinding mills and conduct several grinding trials with various dry biomass products. After viewing several grinding mills and conducting the grinding trials the data that was discovered was recorded and then compared. From the grinding mills that were used in this research they were classified into two types: crushing and hammer mills. There were three hammer mills and three crushing mills that grinded dry biomass products in similar ways but varied because of the slight difference within the machine. The grinding trials were conducted using only two biomass products: bauhinia purpurea and cocoa pods. From the grinding trials several observations were made about the milling machine. Trial one of the bauhinia purpurea had used less mass and less time but consumed more energy because the milling machine was overfed, while trial two used more mass and took nearly twice the time but consumed less energy making it more efficient because the milling machine was fed less. Although the overall goal of this experiment was to identify the various milling technologies and see what biomass product works best with which technology the problems that have occurred with the grinding mills have shown an important aspect in what needs to be done to improve them. For the best results this research must be continued to gather more information from other grinding mills and conduct more grinding trials using other dry biomass products.
References: Methods of size reduction and factors affecting size Reduction in Pharmaceutics. International research journal of pharmacy, 2013/4(8)
Review of Biomass Size Reduction Technology; An ASAE Meeting Presentation – 2003 ASAE Annual International Meeting Sponsored by ASAE, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA 27-30 July 2003.
Some factors affecting sieving performance and efficiency. Journal of Powder Technology 193, (2009) Elsevier Science.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This study was supported, in part, by a grant from the National Science Foundation awarded to Lorraine Fleming, Wayne Patterson, and Mohamed Chouikha, Principal and Co-Principal Investigators of the Global Education, Awareness and Research Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP), Howard University, Washington, DC. I would like to acknowledge the University of Buea, the Faculty of Science, and the College of Technology, for their support in facilitating this research project. I would also like to acknowledge Professor Obongua for supervising my research project.
Faculty Advisor: Ayanna Johnson, ayanna.johnson@bison.howard.edu
Role: I participated in the entire research project which includes the literature review, grinding trials, calculations, and the research paper.