American-Eurasian J. Agric. & Environ. Sci., 3 (5): 743-747, 2008 ISSN 1818-6769 © IDOSI Publications, 2008 Corresponding Author: Dr. Ali Asghari, Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, Faculty of Biosystem Engineering, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran 743 Effect of Auger Speed and Air Flow on Discharge Rate of Bagasse Ali Asghari, Reza Alimardani, Asadollah Akram and Hosein Karparvar Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, Faculty of Biosystem Engineering, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran Abstract: Bagasse as a by-product of sugar mill factories is a good resource in agricultural industries. It is used as fuel, Cellulose, livestock feed and fertilizer resources in most countries that produce sugarcane. The sugar manufacturing plants in Iran use cheap mazut as fuel. A reasonable application of bagasse in Iran is to incorporate it deeply in soil to improve its physical properties and also to overcome the problem of disposal and environmental pollutions which is burned today. To fulfill the objective of this task, a special new machine is needed to inject bagasse in soil. As a result, a bagasse discharging prototype machine was fabricated and the effects of machine parameters were studied. The results of experiments showed that the machine parameters had significantly direct effect on discharge rate, but the effect of moisture content of bagasse was indirect. The conclusion from this study is the first step in design of a new machine for injecting bagasse in deep layers of soil. Key words: Bagasse Auger speed Air flow Soil organic materials Discharge rate INTRODUCTION livestock feed and soil fertilizer in both forms of Bagasse as a fibrous material is one of the main harvested sugarcanes are transformed into bagasse by-products of sugarcane manufacturing plant which is from each hectare of sugarcane farms as a by-product obtained after the sugar juice is leached out of sugarcane. of sugar [2]. Annual global production of bagasse is It is a low density material with very wide ranges of estimated around 410 million tons. Share of Iran is 2.8 particle size and high moisture content of around 50-52% million tons of bagasse annually [6]. as it leaves the milling process in almost all sugarcane Globally, almost half of the surplus bagasse is burned industries [1]. The dried bagasse consists of 38-40% in sugar manufacturing plant as fuel. In a well-balanced Cellulose, 25-28% Hemicellulose, 20-22 % Lignin, 2-3% raw-sugar factory, the quantity of final bagasse is usually Sucrose and 7-10 % of ash [2,3]. It is important to more than sufficient to supply all the fuel required, leaving characterize flow ability of bagasse since it is necessary a surplus to be disposed of. In such cases, where no to apply normal design procedures for mechanical or secondary outlet for the material exists, its disposal pneumatic conveying, fluidization, drying and combustion often offers troublesome problems and heat efficiency is of this by-product. Terminal velocity and drag coefficient sacrificed so that a greater quantity than actually required of bagasse fibers has been reported by Nebra and to be burned in the boiler furnaces. The bagasse surplus Macedo [4]. They found that the terminal velocity of to fuel requirements may be as much as 25 percent or more bagasse fibers is between 2 to 4 m/s. The physical of the total quantity available. So the surplus is often properties of bagasse were studied by Rasul et al. [1] more than enough to provide the energy requirements for and by Ponce et al. [5]. They developed a technique for distillation of alcohol, rum made from molasses and for determining physical properties of major components other ancillary services provided by the sugar factory, of bagasse named pith, fiber and rind. including the generation of electric power, the bagasse is In most countries that produce sugarcane, bagasse exceeded and other usages should be employed [2]. is used as; fuel resource (usually in the same sugar Because of the cheep mazut in Iran, sugar- extraction factory), Cellulose resource for Cellulosic manufacturing plants are designed to use mazut as fuel of industries (for making fiberboard, paper or cardboard), boilers instead of bagasse. Due to the needs of cellulosic composted or non-composted. Almost 30 to 35% of