Physical and thermal evaluation of agricultural waste based solid biomass
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Date
2021-02
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
In India plenty of biomass is available due to the vast agricultural production. Agricultural waste based biomass are abundant source of renewable energy, which can be conveniently used after briquetting as an efficient energy source. In this study briquettes were prepared at very low compaction pressure of 7 kg/cm2 which make them accessible to all people without need of any briquetting machine. In this study three types of biomass such as wheat straw, rice husk and cow dung were considered for
briquetting. Briquettes were prepared by using organic binder molasses. Binder ratio in briquette was optimized due to applied low pressure. After preliminary test, it was observed that 30% binder in briquette is optimum for 7 kg/cm2 compaction pressure. After optimization of binder, briquettes were prepared by using wheat straw, rice husk and cow dung powder. Mixture of wheat straw and rice husk in 20:80 ratio is considered as base composition for briquetting because this composition gives maximum calorific value. Then this base composition is mixed with cow dung and molasses. Total seven briquettes having base composition, cow dung and molasses in 70:0:30, 60:10:30, 50:20:30, 40:30:30, 30:40:30, 20:50:30 and 10:60:30 ratios were prepared and considered for detailed analysis. The analysis includes moisture content, briquette density, proximate analysis, calorific values, kinetic study, fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermo-gravimetric (TGA/DTG) analysis. The experimental results suggested that the addition of cow dung into the base composition resulted in the increase of moisture content, volatile matter and ash content. As a result, the maximum calorific value 16.089 MJ/kg, maximum moisture content 3.98%, maximum volatile matter 68.13%, maximum ash content15.62%, maximum fixed carbon content 19.19% and maximum briquette density 498.98 kg/m3 were obtained. TGDTG curve also indicated that lowest decomposition rate was obtained for briquette having maximum cow dung percentage. Lowest activation energy was obtained for briquette not having cow dung. Therefore, agricultural waste based biomass briquettes can be considered as sustainable energy and heating source for rural areas.