A Review: Assessment of Domestic Solid Fuel Sources in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria has the potential to generate 12,522 MW of electricity, but can only dispatch 4000 MW, which is insufficient for a population of over 200 million people as of 2022. Therefore, Nigerians use solid fuels including firewood and charcoal as an alternative to insufficient electricity for domestic use. The consumption of firewood and charcoal in Nigeria is estimated at 23,745,458 tons and 4,828,689 tons, respectively in 2021, by far the most consumed domestic solid fuel sources in Nigeria. Although there are domestic solid fuel alternatives, such as dung, agricultural residues and coal, to firewood and wood charcoal, their sustainable adoption has been slow in Nigeria, indicating that there is insufficient knowledge of domestic solid fuel sources. This requires a review focused on assessing Nigeria’s national sources of solid fuels. This article presents an overview of the sources of domestic solid fuels in Nigeria, an exploration of different types of firewood and charcoal studies, the impact of solid fuels on climate change and the environment, health risks associated with solid fuel and biomass briquettes and pellets as domestic solid fuel alternatives to charcoal and firewood. The continued production and use of firewood and wood charcoal as domestic solid fuel sources encourage deforestation, desertification and greenhouse gas emission, which in turn pose a threat to a sustainable environment and good health. It is necessary to limit the felling of trees for firewood and charcoal production to curtail their negative impacts on the health of users and the environment. This review covered the thermal, mechanical and physical properties of briquette and pellet fuels as substitutions for firewood and charcoal. It was shown that employing briquettes and pellets as a source of solid fuel in the home will lessen the negative impacts that these fuels have on users’ health, the climate and the environment.

Development of a new fast drying determinant method using resistivity for the industry of coconut shell charcoal briquettes

“…This resistivity shows the character of the material. Following the strategy in geophysics, the resistivity of a material can be traced from a measurement as equation (1). R e and R eApp are the resistivity of the material and its measurement result or apparent resistivity.…”

“…Therefore, it is easy to differentiate between the wet briquette and the half-dry or the dry briquette. Applying equation (1) to the data of resistivity, the averages and their standard deviation can be found as shown in Table 6. The half-dry and the dry briquette have different resistivity distributions, even though they have the same order.…”

“…Briquette is a kind of prospective solid fuel renewable energy for many parts of the world [1], therefore, its production has become important to study in recent years. The main reason for studying the topic is to find a method to provide affordable green energy.…”

“…Charcoal briquette is considered a reasonable fuel for local communities especially the agricultural community [2]. Accordingly, local resources are becoming an important topic of discussion in the area [1]. Other popular issues are the technology and parameters for the production [3].…”