Processing and Characterisation of Charcoal Briquettes Made from Waste Rice Straw as A Renewable Energy Alternative

In Malaysia, waste paddy plant after rice harvesting were abundant and have no commercial value and significant usage. This paddy waste is commonly burnt on the landfilled which cause open firing and leads to environmental problem. This study determines the potential of rice straw waste for charcoal briquette production and study the effect of using different binders (corn and tapioca starch) in making the briquettes. Raw rice straws were combusted at 260°C for 4 hours in oven to form char powder. Corn starch and tapioca starch used as binder and each of them was mixed with char powder before compacted into briquettes. Each briquette was characterized in terms of their bulk density, moisture content, ash content, compressive strength and flammable characteristics. It was found that corn starch-charcoal briquette showed higher ash content, higher bulk density and compressive strength up to 68 MPa. Increased of both binders has increased the bulk density and compressive strength of briquettes. Both type of charcoal briquettes showed similar ignition time and burning characteristic, approximately at 18 minutes and 0.08 gm/min respectively.

Design and Simulation of Pottery Kiln

Pottery industry is one of the small-scale industries in India. Most rural potters depend upontraditional pottery kilns for burning process by firewood or coconut husk. In order to producehigh quality pottery products better burning process is needed. The purpose of the project isto thermal analysis of burning process in a traditional furnace in order to achieve uniformtemperature inside the kiln and decrease the fuel consumption through better distribution of input heat. The traditional kilns are bonfire kilns, which involve open firing inshallow pit. These kilns suffer higher fuel consumption, poor ware strength andextensive breakage. Smokes produced during firing will serious health problems topottery workers and their family. There is lack of thermal studies on bonfire kilns. Accounting the demerits of traditional one is led to development of downdraught kiln. The thermal studies in performance of downdraught kiln by varying different parameters practically expensive and almost impossible. For this reason, the downdraught kiln is modeled and simulated on the computer by using the numerical method. By changing different parameter of the kiln like change in firewall height, Chimney height and roof geometry in simulation, substantial improvement in the performance of the kiln was detected. This modification is suggesting for the new design of improved pottery kiln.

Technology and raw material sources of pottery from Mulyosari Site based on petrographic analysis

Since the research in 2018 until 2019, pottery sherds are the most dominant artifact from Mulyosari megalithic site amongst other. Hence, analysis conducted towards pottery directly associated with the megaliths are important. Petrographic analysis that was applied in this research is aiming to understand the technology and the material source of pottery at Mulyosari Site. It is necessary to know whether the pottery is locally made or imported from other region. Petrographic analysis was carried out to several excavated pottery samples. All the samples were not randomly chosen; instead they were based on specific character of pottery sherds. The result of analysis shows that the source of pottery material located within geological formation of researched area comprises Sukamade, Merubetiri, Batu Ampar, and Merubetiri limestone. The result of analysis also shows advanced pottery making technology using spinning wheel and open firing at 400 Celsius degrees.

New Data on Traditional Pottery in India (Pune, Maharashtra)

Purpose. A brief survey of the pottery community in the Mundhwa area was conducted in March 2019 and February 2020 as part of the Russian-Indian anthropological expedition organized by the Paleoethnology Research Center, State Museum of Biology (Moscow, Russia) and Savitribai Phule Pune University (Pune, India). The purpose of the study was to provide an initial insight into how traditional pottery functions in these urbanized environments. Results. Various forms of pottery production have been identified. The most widespread was men’s pottery using a potter’s wheel. Only men are engaged in the manufacture of pottery here – Hinduism forbids women from working on a potter’s wheel. All craftsmen work almost all year round, reducing production during the rainy season. With the rapid urbanization and concentration of the population, the demand for pottery has increased. Potters buy practically all raw materials. The clay is brought by peasants from villages within a radius of 80 km by trucks several times a year. The preparation of raw materials, as well as kneading the clay paste, is carried out by most potters by hand. All potters use an electric potter’s wheel to create the vessels. The surface treatment of products by potters is carried out by smoothing using fingers or scrapers while the wheel is rotating. Firing is carried out in square ovens made of bricks. The firing of products begins in the evening, active combustion lasts two to three hours, after which the oven is left to cool until the morning, when the finished vessels are removed. One firing requires about 150 kg of wood. Potters who migrated here from Uttar Pradesh use open firing for their vessels. Conclusion. The authors found that: the traditional nature of the craft is preserved in the community: knowledge and skills are passed down through the family line, the potters use traditional raw materials, building techniques and firing devices; resettled potters demonstrate mixed skills in different levels of pottery production, for example using a mixture of different natural clays; under the pressure of economic conditions, the electric pottery wheel is spreading, the way firing is organized has slightly changed.

A New Method for Contextual Analysis on Prehistoric Attitudes to Ritual Pottery

This paper provides a new method for the contextual analysis of pottery in an approach to prehistoric sensibilities. Collating the contextual photographic evidence of pottery in a prehistoric ritual setting, with photographs of the pot taken after excavation from every direction, that is, omni-directional photo-taking, allows an archaeologist to demonstrably identify which surface of the pot was oriented to a certain direction in its original context. Owing to the presumably solemn and formal atmosphere of the prehistoric burial, the orientation of funerary goods is helpful for the understanding of the cognition of prehistoric people. A case study comes from the cemetery of the introductory stage of the Japanese Neolithic, and the orientation of the blackened discoloration of pottery that had appeared accidentally during open-firing in production is investigated. Results show that the prehistoric actor was fully aware of the blackened spot, and contributes to the argument for the inclination of past potters to try to prevent such accidental defect.