Experimental Analysis to Utilise Biomass Briquettes as Fuel-An Alternative Source of Clean Energy

In this work, investigations were carried out to analyse the briquetting characteristics of briquettes produced from areca sheets and coconut leaves, with a view to find out which of them would make the best biomass fuel, when compared with the commercially available sawdust briquette. To determine the compositionofbiomassbriquettes, ultimate and proximateanalyses were carried out. Asimple prototypebriquetting machine was fabricated to facilitate compaction of this biomass into briquettes. Areca sheets and coconut leaves were collected from a farm, dried, reduced and sieved into sizes of 850 μm. These biomass materials were mixed with paper, sawdust and coconut coir, which acted as binders, in 1: 2 ratios, and densified using a piston type briquette machine. Results after analysis showed that briquettes made from coconut leaves using sawdust as a binder had a calorific value of 3, 672.45 kcal/g, which was higher than other briquettes made from areca sheets, using paper, sawdust and coconut coir as binders, though less than the commercially available sawdust briquette (4, 451.37 kcal/g). But there was a decrease in percentage of moisture content, ash content and increase in percentage of volatile matter, when compared with the commercial sawdust briquette, which is of significant importance. Other properties like percentage of fixed carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen were approximately same as that of commercial sawdust briquette. For the two biomass material used, coconut leaves with sawdust as binder exhibited most positive attribute.