Author : Nguyen Thuan Nhi

Summary : A direct-fired rice husk furnace was designed and developed to solve the problems of using rice husk, which is available in Vietnam, as a biomass fuel to provide the heat energy for drying paddy in rural areas during the wetseason harvest. The direct-fired rice husk furnace, which is appropriate for rural areas, was an improvement on the design of existing rice hull furnaces. The prototype was fabricated and tested to determine its performance in a flat-bed grain drying system. The furnace has a fuel consumption of 10-16 kg rice husk per hour and can be used to dry two tons of paddy per batch using direct heat. Its burning efficiency is as high as 97.9 percent. Its furnace efficiency has an average of 77.4 percent. No smoke is produced when the fuel burned. The furnace design is simple and small metal shops in the rural areas can easily fabricate it.