Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) is becoming a seedbed of technological inventions, innovations, skills development, and technology transfer in Ethiopia. Professionals in the TVET sector are engaging in various innovational and technological developments and these new technologies target solving societal problems. Thanks to the attention given to the TVET industry in recent years, the sector is contributing a huge share in skill development and economic development at large.
The policy and structural reforms being applied by the government to create a vibrant TVET sector are bringing meaningful changes in the sector. The TVET is becoming a center of excellence in skills and technology transfer that accelerates the economic development endeavors of the country. In addition to producing skilled and professional human resources for various sectors, professionals from the TVET education are coming up with new ideas and inventing problem-solving products.
Recently, the Addis Ababa City Administration Labor and Skills Bureau has organized a City-wide TVET Exhibition week at the Exhibition center here in the capital under the theme “TVET for Sustainable Development.” At the 14th TVET Exhibition of the city innovators, students, and trainers from different TVET colleges presented their products and innovations. Among the products displayed at the exhibition were a luxury automobile manufactured locally, a machine that produces oil from different wastes, and other problem-solving machines and products.
Haileyesus Wendwesen is a Technology Expert at Bola Manufacturing College. Haileyesus presented a machine manufactured at Bole Manufacturing College by him and his colleagues during the 14th City-wide TVET week. The machine they produced is a new one for Ethiopia. It has managed to change different types of waste into fuel and charcoal. As to Haileyesus, the machine can produce diesel, kerosene, and gasoline using different types of wastes and temperatures. Similarly, it also produces charcoal from waste that can be used for cooking services.
Hialesues is a holder of a Master of Science Degree (MSc) in Mechanical Thermal Engineering, and he specializes in temperature-related activities in the technology sector. He is working as a technology Expert at the college and with his workmates, they are manufacturing different types of technological products targeting to solve societal problems. While they continue innovating and producing new machines and products, they started a project targeting making fuel from waste. The project as project was started three years ago and finally, they manufactured a big machine plant that managed to process dry wastes to produce fuel and charcoal.
“The machine is a thermal machine that produces fuel using different types of wastages as an input. The pilot test was successful where the machine managed to produce gasoline, kerosene, and diesel products and similarly charcoal,” Haileyesus told The Ethiopian Herald. As to him, though the project takes three years, manufacturing the machine was started in mid-2023 and completed within months. After completing the machine and testing it, they displayed the machine to promote it during the 14th City-wide TVET week.
The total cost of the project, according to Haileyesus, is around 800,000 birr and the machine is fully functional despite it needs some improvements to fix minor errors. “The machine is a thermal machine, and it properly produces a fuel that can replace the imported fuel to be used for all fuel-consuming services including vehicles and other machines,” Haileyesus said adding it produces pure kerosene, diesel, and gasoline using different types of wastages and processing the wastage at different temperature rate.
Haileyesus said that there is poor waste management in Ethiopia despite it being a resource by itself. Similarly, Ethiopia is forced to outlay billions of dollars to import fuel for different purposes mainly for transportation. The price of fuel is also increasing from time to time. So, as to Haileyesus, Ethiopia demands a resource that can replace the imported fuel. “As we have a huge wastage resource, we decided to try producing fuel from the wastages and we realized it,” he stated.
After realizing the availability of huge waste resources, Haileyesus and his friends started a project to produce fuel from waste. “Wastage management is poor in our country and wastage is thrown here and there where it pollutes the environment and affects the health of human beings and other living things,” he stated. Hence, they started the project to contribute their role in waste management and to use the resources to produce a critical product. As to him, they achieved their dream of producing a machine that can process waste to produce fuel and charcoal. At the pilot level, they already produced the three types of oil gases, kerosene, diesel, and gasoline, according to Haileyesus, and similarly charcoal from the wastages, thanks to the machine they produced at their college. Now, they plan to improve the machine and produce it for commercial purposes as they are becoming sure that the machine is properly processing waste and producing fuel.
“The major task of this machine is processing wastage and producing fuel out of the wastage. We separate the wastage by grid to put it in its type separately to process it at different temperatures. Different types of wastage items demand different temperature levels based on the nature of the wastage. After separating the items, we put the waste into the machine for the process. During the process, each type of wastage needs a different temperature, and the machine was manufactured considering different types of wastage. Finally, using the wastage impute and a temperature from the machine, it produces fuel,” Haileyesus stated. The type of fuel produced from this process is kerosene, diesel, and gasoline.
In addition to kerosene, diesel, and gasoline, it also gives byproducts like wax and charcoal, he stated. Similarly, using plastic waste, the machine produced charcoal products that can be used for cooking. “So, the machine kills three birds with one stone as it is capable of managing wastage, producing fuel and charcoal,” he stated. As to him, the machine helps for a smooth and environmentally friendly waste management system to have a clean environment. Similarly, it helps to produce fuel locally with available resources.
“We can use any type of wastage to produce fuel. So far, mainly we use car wheels to produce fuel. When we use the wheel, it has the highest density. The temperature to process the wheel is 575 degrees Celsius. At 575 degrees Celsius, it needs temperature for three hours. When we heat the wheel at a temperature of 575 degrees Celsius for three hours, it gives a fuel,” Haileyesus noted.
Hence following the process, in the first machine, it gives diesel and after further condensing the remained gas using additional reaction, it produces kerosene and wax. So, through this process, it produces diesel, gasoline, kerosene, and wax using only different types of waste and heating the waste at different temperature levels. Despite the machine was manufactured at Bole Manufacturing College, the professionals have strong connections with technology scholars from Addis Ababa University during the process of making the machine.
After completing the first machine, they found some limitations that they are working to fix and improve these limitations of the machine. In the next few months, they are planning to fix and improve the machine to make it a computerized manufacturing plant. “We identified and listed the gaps one by one and we will improve and fill the gaps of the machine to make it a perfect automatic modern machine,” Haileyesus stated. They are working to make the machine a fully computerized machine.
The internal reactor volume of the machine is a minimum 300 liters. With this capacity, it can process 97 kilograms of waste at once to produce fuel. So far, for sample production, using 40 kilograms of waste it produced 27 litters of fuel and 25 kilograms of charcoal on average. This is the initial level product of the machine, and the machine was designed to produce 70 liters of fuel using 40 kilograms of wastage, as to Haileyesus. The machine is designed to operate for 24 hours continuously. The energy consumption of the machine is also efficiently designed where the maximum consumption is 18-kilowatt energy, as to him. After adjusting the gaps, the machine will be ready to produce fuel from wastage.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 12 JULY 2024
