Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
Biomass feedstocks such as rice straw, banana leaves and teak leaves (Tectona grandis) can be densified to fuel
briquettes by means of wet briquetting process at lower pressures of 200-1000 kPa using a piston press. In wet
briquetting process, biomass feedstocks are decomposed up to a desired level under anaerobic condition. Later,
on this decomposed biomass feedstocks are blended with Mesua Ferrea seed cake as a binder and the whole
mixture is pressurized to wet briquettes or fuel briquettes at different die pressures. Upon drying, these wet
briquettes could be used as solid fuels. The present study aims to determine physical and handling
characteristics such as density, shear strength, durability and impact resistance of briquettes.
Keywords: Feedstocks, Mesua Ferrea, Briquettes.
1. INTRODUCTION
India produces large amounts of bio
waste material every year. This includes rice
straw, wheat straw, coconut shell fibers, rice
husks, stalks of legumes and sawdust. Some of
this biomass is just burnt in air; some like rice
husk are mostly dumped into huge mountains of
waste. Open-field burning has been used
traditionally to dispose of crop residues and
sanitize agricultural fields against pests and
diseases [1]. Instead of burning down these wastes
or letting to decompose in open air which raises
the problem of GHG production, it can be
converted to bio-fuels to produce power either by
direct combustion or transforming these loose
biomass to solid fuels like briquettes [2.3]. So
these processes become automatic candidates for
financing under CDM mode.
Biomass briquetting is the densification
of loose biomass material to produce compact
solid composites of different sizes with the
application of pressure. Three different types of
densification technologies are currently in use.
The first called pyrolizing technology relies on
partial pyrolysis of biomass, which is added with
binder and then made into briquettes by casting
and pressing. The second technology is direct
extrusion type, where the biomass is dried and
Identification
of
biomass
and
pre-
Rice straw
Banana fronds
Wheat straw
Barley straw
Maize stalks
Cotton stalks
Ash (wt %)
Lignin (wt %)
Fiber source
9.9
8.0
8.9
13.8
41.0
21.5
17.5
4.7
5.5
10.3
10.2
3.7
briquettes
200
400
600
800
1000
550
Final relaxed
density, kg/m3
Final relaxed
density, kg/m3
280
260
240
220
200
180
160
140
500
450
400
350
Final relaxed
density, kg/m3
300
200
220
210
200
190
180
170
160
700
Applied die pressure, kPa
400
600
800
1000
360
340
320
300
280
400
600
800
1000
260
240
220
400
600
800
1000
65
200
400
600
800
1000
Final relaxed
density, kg/m3
440
420
400
380
360
340
320
300
280
Rice
55
45
Teak
35
banana
25
200
400
600
800 1000
pressure
70
60
Rice straw
50
40
Banana
30
Teak
20
200
400
600
800 1000
94
Durability Index, %
respectively.
Rice
straw
92
90
Banana
leaf
88
Teak
leaf
86
84
82
200
400
600
800
1000
Durability Index, %
5. REFERENCES
1. Ponnamperuma. (1973). The Chemistry of
Submerged soil, Advan. Agron. , 24, 29-96.
2. Campbell C A; Zentner R P; Gameda S; Blomert
B; Wall D D (2002).Production of annual crops on
the Canadian prairies: trends during 19761998.
Canadian Journal of Soil Science,82, 4557.
4. CONCLUSIONS
From the present study, we came to know
that for all the selected biomass types,
decomposition in aerobic condition without any
kind of additive is the fastest pre-treatment. Rice
straw and teak took 19 days for desired level of
decomposition while banana leaves took 28 days
for the purpose.
Densities of briquettes are obtained in the
ranges 151.29-257.98 kg/m3 for rice straw,
231.58-343.70 kg/m3 for teak leaves and 167.88213.38 kg/m3for banana leaves within applied die
pressure range of 200 kPa to 1Mpa. Similarly,
densities of nahar added briquettes are obtained in
the ranges 316.198-499.70 kg/m3 for rice straw,
288.22-384.44 kg/m3 for banana leaves and
289.13-417.27 kg/m3 for teak leaves for the same
applied die pressure range .Optimum density for
rice straw, banana leaves and teak leaves
briquettes are determined for quality briquettes.
Similarly, for nahar added rice straw, banana
leaves and teak leaves optimum densities are
determined.
Physical characteristics are determined
for 3 types of locally available biomass within
200-1000 kPa. Shear strength and durability
increase with applied die pressure while impact
resistance is constant at 200 impact resistance
index for all types of briquettes. Physical
characteristics are improved on addition of nahar
seed cakes. It has raised overall density of
briquettes. Applied die pressure above 600 kPa for
rice straw, 500kPa for banana leaves and 700 kPa
for teak leaves yields durable briquettes in 45
diameter sizes where 45 mm diameter size is
optimum diameter for a briquette. Similarly, for
Mesua Ferrea L. Seed cake added briquettes,
applied die pressure above 800 kPa for rice straw,
700 kPa for banana leaves and 700 kPa for teak
leaves is required for durable briquettes for the
studied set up. In order to produce, optimum
quality briquettes at low applied die pressure,
Mesua Ferrea L. added rice straw at 800 kPa is a
good option among the other two biomass options.
It has higher density, durability index, shear
strength and impact resistance as compared to
other optimum ones described earlier.
3. Sokhansanj S; Mani S; Stumborg M; Samson R;
Fenton J (2006). Production and distribution of
cereal straw on the Canadian prairies. Canadian
Biosystems Engineering, 48, 3.393.46.
4. Kishore V.V.N., Bhandari P.*, Gupta P. (2004).
Biomass energy technologies
for
rural
infrastructure and village poweropportunities
andchallenges in the context of global climate
change concerns Energy Policy, vol 32 , pp801810.