Firewood dependence for cooking in the developing world has resulted in forests being depleted at a rate of 2.5 to 3% per year. It is here in the poorest parts of the world that villagers spend a good portion of their time gathering wood to cook, heat and make charcoal. To counter this dependence on wood, efforts were made in the early 80’s to come up with alternatives. One such alternative being explored was making fuel briquettes from non-woody biomass for cooking. Dr.Bryant and students at the University of Washington in the USA developed a novel low-cost briquette making process using non-woody agricultural residues, ordinary water and a hand-operated wood press.
“Anyone can make briquettes from their own leaves, grass, straw and paper”
The briquette process was simple and could be established in poor rural communities, requiring little technology and very little money. With a small effort villagers could now create their own fuelwood from agricultural residues. To make a briquette, ordinary leaves, grass and straw would be chopped and mashed into a paste. This paste would then be compressed into round cakes and dried. The resulting briquette would be sold as a fuelwood- and charcoal substitute at the local market. In 1994 the Legacy Foundation, USA, picked up on Bryant’s briquette making process and extended the outreach activities. Today, Legacy Foundation’s training and online media services have spread the briquette technology and process into eleven other countries, such as Haiti, Uganda, Mexico, Nepal, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. The foundation has also released 8 technical/training manuals on all known aspects of briquette making.
Vuthisa acquired the rights to promote and extend this technology into Southern Africa. The Legacy Foundation have now launched their new Ratchet Press to replace the wooden presses and its now manufactured in South Africa.
The Ratchet Press is designed to fold away when being transported and once erected in a few simple steps provides the necessary power to compress sawdust and paper mixed in a wet slurry into medium density fuel briquettes. Using common tools and skills, the Ratchet Press can work for an individual or full time commercial briquette production facility. Though it is compact and portable, it can deliver nearly the same force as their larger Mini Bryant compound level wood press. They have launched 3 Ratchet Press manuals namely; Ratchet Press Construction, -User, and -Marketing manual which explains in detail how to construct (unless an actual press ordered from Vuthisa is preferred) the press, arrange and prepare materials and operate the press successfully.
Watch this demonstration video of our latest Ratchet Press:
Vuthisa have also started manufacturing the Test Briquette Maker (TBM) under license so visit our online shop for prices. Quite a large proportion of people that buy the user manuals never commit themselves to building the actual presses, possibly due to time or money constraints or they lack workshop tools and/or technical know-how. Order this “Press Kit” to get familiarized with the concept behind their hand operated wooden and metal, low-pressure briquetting machines.
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“The Test Briquette Maker can be built for under $125 (USD) and requires almost no maintenance…”
The Test Briquette Maker can be built for under $125 (USD) and requires almost no maintenance, with only basic drilling and welding (10 cm at most) work required. If you’re looking to attract funding to roll out a program using this technology, this press will be most suitable to that end. As mentioned a FREE download link to the “Test Briquette Maker Construction and User Manual” will be supplied with every manual purchased on this site.
Watch this demonstration video of the Test Briquette Maker:
Also visit our Instagram account for more pictures: https://www.instagram.com/vuthisa/
Order the Ratchet press here (minimum order of 2):
For more information on the briquette process and to access their electronic How-To Manuals kindly visit this page:
