Biomass Briquette Making Machine

Across rural India, tonnes of sawdust, rice husk and crop shells are burnt in the open or left to rot, while the same villages buy firewood and LPG for cooking and heating. Briquetting solves both problems at once: compressing loose biomass into dense cylinders raises its bulk density several-fold, turning a waste-handling headache into a storable, transportable solid fuel. This project builds the machine that does it — a motorized piston-type briquetting press. A single-phase motor drives a heavy flywheel and crank-slider mechanism; each stroke rams a measured charge of feedstock through a tapered die, where pressure and friction heat bind it into a briquette that is ejected out the die mouth. The student varies feedstock type and moisture, then measures briquette density, compressive handling strength and burning time from their own samples, making the project a genuine manufacturing-plus-energy study rather than a static model.

1. Prepared feedstock (sawdust, husk or shells at the recommended moisture range) is loaded into the hopper.
2. The sliding gate meters one charge into the compaction chamber ahead of the piston.
3. The motor, through the belt drive and flywheel, drives the crank-slider; the piston rams the charge into the tapered die.
4. Pressure and friction heat in the die bind the charge into a dense briquette, which is ejected out the die mouth as the next charge enters.
5. Briquettes are collected, sun-dried, and the student runs the density, drop-test and burn-time procedure on samples.
6. Results are compared across feedstock types and moisture levels and recorded in the report's test sheets.

Tech stack:

• Fabricated MS frame and crank-slider
• Flywheel (CI) with V-belt drive
• 2 HP single-phase induction motor
• Tapered briquetting die (interchangeable)
• Sheet-metal feed hopper with gate
• Plummer block bearings
• Sheet-metal safety guard
• Weighing scale and test procedure kit

• [Piston-type briquetting press] A crank-slider ram driven through a flywheel compacts each charge in a tapered die — the classic mechanical briquetting arrangement, fully visible in operation.
• [Flywheel energy storage] A heavy flywheel smooths the motor load across the high-force compaction stroke, demonstrating energy storage in a real machine.
• [Interchangeable die] The tapered die unbolts for cleaning and for trying different briquette diameters, with the die drawing included.
• [Feed hopper with charge control] A sheet-metal hopper with a sliding gate meters a repeatable charge per stroke, so briquette weight stays consistent.
• [Briquette test procedure] The manual gives the student a density, drop-test and burn-time procedure to run on their own briquettes and report.
• [Safety guard] A sheet-metal guard encloses the flywheel, belt and crank zone, with the die mouth left accessible for briquette collection.
• [Fabrication drawings] Dimensioned drawings of the frame, crank-slider, die and hopper are supplied for the report and viva.

• Fully fabricated briquetting machine with guard
• Interchangeable tapered die with drawing
• Feedstock preparation and machine operation manual
• Briquette density, drop-test and burn-time test sheets
• Dimensioned fabrication drawings
• Project report PDF (briquetting theory, machine design, test methodology)
• PPT presentation for final review
• Viva Q&A preparation document (densification, binders vs binderless, calorific value basics)