Cimpa-type eco-efficient panela burners

Cimpa-type eco-efficient panela burners
Saccharum officinarum L

Thematic area:
Harvest, post-harvest, and processing management
Productive system:
Sugarcane for panela
Geographic coverage:
Andean Region

Description

It is the implementation of the panela production unit (trapiche), where the energy of the bagasse is transformed into caloric energy and is transferred through bowls (pailas) to the juice extracted from the sugarcane stems in the mill and to the cachaza produced in the clarification to convert them into sugarcane honey or panela and melote, respectively.

The Cimpa burner is offered to produce from 75 to 225 kilograms of panela per hour and to work with green or dry bagasse, depending on the type of combustion chamber, which can be:

Plana-Cimpa, with one or two chambers, the latter known as the Cundinamarca type. They operate mainly with bagasse obtained from grinding and drying until reaching a moisture content < 30%.
Ward-Cimpa, whose unique combustion chamber geometry allows burning green bagasse (which comes out of a mill set to an extraction rate > 60%); this chamber, although requiring a higher investment, offers greater flexibility to the producer to carry out the grinding, without having to wait for dry bagasse.

To reduce heat loss, increase thermal efficiency, and ensure the safety of the panela, the Cimpa burner uses:

Refractory brick for constructing the combustion chamber and part of the duct.
Designs the duct according to the combustion gases' thermal distribution and the boilers' geometry.
Adjusts and regulates the pressure drop and speed of the gases with the height of the chimney and the butterfly valve.
Builds the heat exchangers in stainless steel, located in the burner's duct, seeking the most efficient combination according to the predominant heat transfer phenomenon (radiation or conduction) and the operation it performs (clarification, evaporation, or concentration).

It is recommended for municipalities that produce sugarcane in the departments of Santander, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Antioquia, Caldas, Nariño, Tolima, Cauca, Huila, Norte de Santander, Valle del Cauca and Risaralda.