Paper/Biomass Briquette Press

[rbeau30]

So. I have a lot of junk mail, and mulched leaves in the fall/grass in the summer. So I figured I would build a Briquette press. (okay i have no idea how to spell that but yeah)

Inspired by THIS you tube video, and others.

I used some extra 2x4s and I bought a cheap bottle jack from Harbor Freight. Plus some short peices of 4" 3" and 1 1/4" pvc.

Here is where I am so far. I will lay out the components of the press when it is finished.

Materials:
- Wood screws.
- About three 6-foot 2x4s (I had various scrap in many lengths laying around)
- 1 4-foot long 4" PVC Pipe (cut in half) This is outer part of the press.
- 1 4-foot long 3" PVC Pipe (cut in half) This acts as the "ram" of the press.
- 1 section of 1 1/4 inch PVC Pipe (cut to fit into the hole at the bottom of the press to the top of the "ram". (This is the 'drain' where all the water gets forced out of the material as the press presses the biomass pulp.) This is also drilled with small holes to let water out and down through the bottom of the press.
- 4 3" PVC 'slip-caps' with a flat end. (These are the slip caps that would fit inside the 4" pipe, and outside the 3" pipe to act as the end of the 'ram'.)

Take aways so far:
- I think I would be able to utilize a pallet of some kind to help reduce the wood fabrication process. Maybe I will try that after I get this working.
- I don't think just standard 2x4s will work for very long. As they get quite wet, and the constant wet/dry may become a problem.
- It is messy. I fill these ram assemblies on a table just over the trashcan with "soup" as to drain the overflow back into the trashcan.
- If using biomass (leaves/grass clippings) I think I would add them to the paper right befor processing into bricks. The intruduction of biomass makes a highly fermentable slurry and smells BAD.

DATA
Shredded bills only (heat and not open air cooking):
- Measures inside diameter of a 4" pvc tube x 3" tall
- 12 days curing time (outdoors)
- 16 total bricks fom a trashcan of paper (half a lawn and garden trash bag of shredded paper).
- Each brick averages 1/2 pound

Shredded bills and grass clippings (heat and not open air cooking):
- Measures inside diameter of a 4" pvc tube x 3" tall.


Newspaper only (cooking on the grill...newspaper is supposedly natural vegetable based ink):

Newspaper and grass clippings (cooking on the grill as I don't put chemicals on my grass very often):