Mwampulo, Andrew2025-08-282025-08-282023-12https://repository.must.ac.tz/handle/123456789/474This Dissertation of Engineering and Technology was Published by Mbeya University of Science and Technology.Processing tea requires a lot of energy. However, only significant energy inputs particularly those from fossil fuels, wood fuel, and electricity have been able to support high agricultural productivities and, in turn, the expansion of the green revolution. Due to the recent increase in price and scarcity of these fuels, there has been a shift in the usage of alternative energy sources, such as waste (specifically, agricultural waste), which has the potential to address concerns related to both the environment and energy issues. Moreover, these energy resources have not been able to provide an economically viable solution for agricultural applications even if they seem to contain amount of energy which can be source of energy to be used in various factories in rural areas through gasification process. This study presents an experimental assessment of energy potentials from tea wastes and saw dust available at Itona Tea Factory for tea drying processes as important data for agricultural wastes. The experimental measurement of energy potential from tea wastes was done using bomb calorimeter, muffle furnace and energy balances to determine calorific value, moisture content and energy potentials of tea waste and saw dust respectively. According to the findings, there is sufficient electrical energy for the tea drying process in the tea processing plant, with a total energy potential of 2.78x108kWh. In order to process 9.6 million kg of tea from a 4.5-thousand-hectare tea plantation in Mufindi (during 2021–2022), the total energy usage (4.5 kWh/kg of produced tea) was 4.32x107 kWh. Gasification of these wastes could provide the energy needed to process tea while reducing the environmental harm caused by burning wood fuel and disposing of waste.enOther