TRADITIONAL PELLET PRODUCTION FROM SAWDUST AS SOURCE OF ENERGY FOR COOKING USING IMPROVED STOVE IN MOUDA, A LOCALITY OF MAROUA, CAMEROON

In general, the Far North Region of Cameroon and specifically the town of Maroua is faced a great scarcity of firewood which is the major energy sources of cooking used by the population. Its semi desert environment cannot supply the demanded quantity that combustible. This situation is a challenge for research in order to find out other sources of cooking energy accessible to the population. The purpose of this study is to valorise by the production of pellets, a cooking energy source, the sawdust assimilated to waste and regularly burned. The main objective of this work is to provide an alternative source of firewood. More specifically, it involves manufacturing pellets, innovating an improved pellet-type stove and carrying out cooking tests. Thus, three types of pellets containing 30%, 50% and 70% of sawdust are produced using clay as the binder. After the drying of pellets, the moisture content is assessed and various cooking tests have been done. A new type of stove adequate for the use of pellets and charcoal has been constructed. From the results obtained, it has been observed that the maximum moisture content of the pellets is 10.8± 1.1%. During the combustion, pellets containing 50% of sawdust provide more efficiency. Therefore, with about 1.5 kg of this type of pellets, it is possible to prepare a complete millet meal and coffee sufficient to feed 4 to 5 people a day. This is approximately 0.32 to 0.4 kg / person/day or 0.16 to 0.2 kg of sawdust / individual/day. These results clearly indicate that sawdust can be used to produce pellets which are a reliable source of cooking energy. Instead still be burn as waste, their valorisation can contribute to reduce the pressure of the population on the fragile ecology of far north looking for firewood.