Development of an energy-efficient brick kiln

Brick making in developing countries, which relies on biomass fuel is facing energy shortage. This paper reports a study aiming to develop an energy-efficient brick kiln. The drying, preheating, firing and cooling of bricks were studied by computer simulation of a fixed bed model and resulted in a new design of downdraft brick kiln. The new kiln has four chambers to serve the four processes separately but simultaneously. A heat recovery feature was incorporated in the kiln operation. A kiln was constructed for full-scale experimentation. The experiments showed that the specific energy consumption could be as low as 2.3 MJ kg(-1) of brick, which was only half of that presently consumed in traditional open top updraft kilns. The energy efficiency of the new kiln was 62.6% on average. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.