DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A LOW-COST PLANTAIN PITH ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM

Abstract

Just as energy needs are inevitable so is waste generation almost unavoidable in day to day activities of man. The effect of lack of proper waste management is enormous ranging from health problems to different forms of pollution. The effects of waste have produced renewable energy targets which have remained one of the best alternatives for sustainable energy development. Plantain stem is an agro waste which constitute great nuisance to the farm after fruits have been harvested from it or incur additional cost of disposal on farmers. In this respect, this research work developed and evaluated the performance of a plantain stem energy storage system. The energy storage system was designed as a galvanic cell fabricated by sandwiching chopped plantain pith between parallel zinc and copper electrodes placed in a carton mould. The performance of the cell was evaluated when fresh plantain pith and boiled plantain pith was used. It was observed that due to change in membrane structure of the plantain pith, there was a better energy yield of 0.48volts for the boiled samples at 50 minutes boiling time. The effective cell size was 9C (9cm length of electrode and 4cm distance between electrodes) after considering factors including effects of different length of electrode and distance between them at a constant depth of 5cm. A single cell could not power a LED, therefore there was need to increase the electrical properties by connecting the more cells in series and parallel so as to increase the voltage and current respectively. After much trial, thirty cells operated in series and parallel generated sufficient power to operate an LED for 4 days continuously after which the light from the LED became very low probably due to depreciation in current. The plantain pith energy storage system can be utilised as an alternative lightning system in developing areas and higher intensity can be obtained by connecting more cells in series and parallel