Study of stoves used in the silk-reeling industry

The present study aims at evaluating the performance of the stoves used in the silk-reeling industry for the cocoon-cooking operation, in order to identify bottlenecks in achieving higher fuel efficiency and the ways and means to overcome these. The paper describes in detail the present process and stoves used in the silk-reeling industry, the findings of the survey of 236 cooking ovens in the field giving the present energy-use pattern. The details of energy and water balancing experiments, carried out for evaluating stove performance and to identify various heat and water streams to arrive at the useful heat required for the present cocoon-cooking process, are also given, along with possible energy-saving potentials. The results show that the useful energy required for the present cooking technique/practice is about 5440 and 3660 kJ/kg cocoon for cooking in the charka and the cottage basin oven, respectively.