REPOST: Biomass Briquette Press

January 5, 2014

(server crashed and restored from a backup so lost original from Nov 13, 2013)

I’ve been wanting to build this for a loooong time. When my parents came for a visit I decided it was the perfect project for father son bonding to get me off my duff.  I got the plans for the Micro Compound Lever Biomass Briquette Press from Engineers Without Borders.

Why do this?  Well, I’m a bit obsessed with finding uses for waste.  Food scraps go to the chickens or compost.  Paper/plastic/metal in the recycler.  I read in a novel you can make phosphorous from urine though I haven’t tried that one.  So what about all those yard trimmings and leaves?  Aside from conservation I want to prep for the inevitable zombie apocalypse by familiarizing myself with alternative fuel sources.

So here’s the finished press…

… and here are some pucks.

Don’t those look tasty?  Actually they’re not nearly dense enough.  The material that comes out of my wood chipper is too large, it doesn’t break up leaves and brush well enough for it to be packed tightly.  The bottom right briquette is the best but that’s because it was bottom of the batch with lots of paper and sawdust.

So that’s the next project I think, something to grind up brush into sawdust.  I also want a plastic granulator so I can re-melt plastic junk into filament for a 3D printer.  Engineers Without Borders has a design for a biomass grinder but I’m not too impressed with it.  I bought inexpensive plans for a DIY hammer mill but that will only work for brush.  Still looking for a solid DIY solution that covers all the bases.

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