Briquettes Produced With a Mixture of Urban Pruning Waste, Glycerin and Cassava Processing Residue

Abstract

The briquette is considered a solid biofuel, made from the compaction of lignocellulosic residues used for the generation of energy. This work aimed to study the production of briquettes from mixtures of Urban Pruning Waste (RPU) (pruning of leaves and thin branches of trees), glycerin and cassava bagasse (Manihot esculenta). Samples of RPU, cassava bagasse and glycerol were mixed to yield treatments T1 (100% RPU), T2 (92% RPU and 8% cassava bagasse), T3 (97% RPU and 3% glycerin), T4 (89% RPU, 8% cassava bagasse and 3% Glycerin), T5 (94.5% RPU, 4% cassava bagasse and 1.5% glycerin) and T6 (control). Following this step, physical, chemical and energetic analyses (moisture content, volatile material content, fixed carbon and ash content, superior, inferior and useful calorific value, mechanical resistance, apparent and energetic density) of the briquettes were carried out. Treatment T2 had a lower fixed carbon value and volatile content, as well as higher ash content and mechanical strength. The percentages of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen did not differ statistically between the treatments. The higher, lower and useful heating values were higher in treatment T3. The results showed that treatments T1, T2 and T3 were more efficient, producing briquettes with properties that meet market specifications, besides presenting great energetic potential, being good substitutes for firewood.

A Review of Biomass Briquette Binders and Quality Parameters

“…and could be competing for other uses including food and industrial uses [55,56]. Studies that are more recent have focused on new binders that are cheaper, improve briquette qualities, sustainable in their use as well as optimizing biomass-binder ratio which are all important in long-term commercial production of biomass briquettes [54,57,58].…”

“…Crude glycerin, a by-product in biodiesel production, has been successfully used as a binding agent in biomass briquetting with significant positive effects on the briquette properties [57,[59][60][61]. Although crude glycerin can be purified into valuable chemical for use in the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics industries, the purification process is rather expensive and inefficient due to a wide variety of impurities it often contains [62].…”

Evaluation of the Bioenergy Potential of Blends (Green Coconut Shells and Fish Scales) as a Feedstock in Thermochemical Processes for Clean Energy Production

“…where λ is the latent heat of water vaporization (2.31 MJ kg −1 ) at 25 • C, W is the moisture contained in the sample, H is the hydrogen content obtained from the ultimate analysis, and r is the moisture ratio, given by r = W/(100 − W). All experiments were performed in triplicate to verify the repeatability of the results [32].…”