Engineering Properties of Various Agricultural Residue

Various engineering properties of rice husk, rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and cotton stalk were estimated. Experiment was performed at SPRERI (Sardar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute), Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat. Different physical properties of these residues such as moisture content, bulk density, true density, porosity, angle of repose and thermal properties like volatile matter, ash content and fixed carbon was measured. Bulk density of rice husk and rice straw was 331.59 kg/m3 and 380.54 kg/m3 respectively. For sugarcane bagasse and cotton stalk it was 723.2 and 206.14kg/m3 respectively. Volatile matter and ash content for rice husk, rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and cotton stalk was recorded as 70.70, 64.43, 86.15,96.07 % d.b. and 18.60, 15.20, 3.28, 6.93 % d.b. respectively. Fixed carbon for rice husk, rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and cotton stalk was calculated as 10.7, 20.37, 10.62 and 10.7 respectively. These various engineering properties helps significantly for designing of equipment, enhance plant production, developing new technologies in which agricultural residues are used as raw material.