Internationally-awarded inventor Engr. Alexis Belonio is perfecting his two-burner rice husk stove which is an improvement over his original invention.
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ – Engr. Alexis Belonio was not thinking of money when he started works on a rice husk gas stove.
He was thinking more of the contribution he could make in making use of renewable energy at least cost for the benefit of countless families and risk reduction in the environment.
When the stove was perfected and he had received international awards for it, he never bothered to secure a patent for his invention. He is now promoting and disseminating the design and specification of his invention to people elsewhere in the world free of charge.
“I find joy and fulfillment in sharing my invention,” Belonio said. “Money cannot buy joy and fulfillment, isn’t?” he added.
Belonio was the first Filipino who received the “Rolex Award for Enterprise” for his creation of a low-cost, environment friendly rice husk (or hull) stove. The watch-making company included him in 2008 for its list of five associate laureate and was given US $50,000 and a chronometer.
He did not keep the money for himself as he put up and supported the “Center for Rice Husk Energy Technology Project” at the Central Luzon State University (CLSU) here “to make the technology going and to help many people elsewhere in the world”.
His other recognitions were the “Tech Award Laureates” given by the Tech Museum based in Californaia, USA and the “Yahoo! Pitong Pinoy Awards” given by Yahoo! Southeast Asia.
Belonio, 51, was born and raised on the CLSU campus where his father was an employee of the university.
He finished his Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Engineering and his master’s degree in CLSU.
He used to work as an associate professor and chair of the Department of Agricultural Engineering and Environmental Management of the Central Philippine University in Iloilo City. He stayed and worked in Iloilo, his mother’s native place, and worked in the university for several years.
Describing himself now as “an unemployed worker”, he is currently staying on the campus of CLSU.
“They allowed me and my family in one of the rooms here free of charge. I am currently unemployed,” Belonio said.
He is a holder of a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering and a masteral degree in engineering which he both obtained in CLSU.
He stays in an office at the Philippine-Sino Center for Agriculture Technology (PhilScat) where he works on his new design and answers e-mails he has been receiving from people in different parts of the world who are interested in his design and to write books.
In 2004, Belonio started working on his invention that he thought of using as fuel rice husk, an agricultural waste, without the problems encountered in earlier designs of its kind.
His work was inspired by a proto-type of a wood gasifier presented in a training he attended in 2003 in Thailand.
He completed it as a student project in 2004 without realizing that he “succeeded where others have stopped short of success” as Dr. Paul Anderson, an emeritus associate professor of Illinois State University who focused since 2003 on “Improved Cook Stoves” said.
The inventor described his invention as a “stove designed to burn rice husk using limited amount of air for combustion to produce luminous blue flame which is almost similar to that of the LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) stove”.
It does not produce smoke and has a stable fire without tar-like residue, he further said.
Its component parts are the gasifier reactor (made up of ordinary galvanized iron shaped into a cylinder with a diameter of 0.10 to 0.30 meter and a height of 0.4 to 1 meter), burner, pot support, char chamber, safety shield, fan assembly, and control switch.
One sack of rice husk, per Belonio’s study, was enough for three to five days supply of fuel depending on frequency of use. Initial cost of production of the stove was at P5,000 but was lowered to P1,250.
The yearly savings on fuel is P8,037. 30, he said.
Belonio is currently perfecting his two-burner rice husk gas stove provided with a gas pipe to separate the fuel reactor and the burners.
He is also helping put out a power generating plant in Lapu-lapu City that will use rice husk, garbage and other wastes as fuel.
