Biomass Utilization of Some Agricultural Wastes as Alternative Fuel in Indonesia

Abstract

The world's energy consumption continues to increase from year to year. On the other side, the reserve of energy source, especially energy from fossil fuels are diminishing. To anticipate energy shortage or even energy crisis, a study to find an alternative of energy sources needs to be done. Agricultural wastes biomass is very interesting to study because of abundantly available but not fully utilized yet. Agricultural waste biomass can be made more useful as fuel by of carbonizing and briquetting process. Agricultural wastes that were used in this study i.e. corn cob (CC), corn stalk (CS), soybean shell and stalk (SSS), peanut shell (PS), rice husk (RH) and rice straw (RS). The results of this study showed that many kinds of agricultural waste had different heating value. Carbonizing could increase the heating value of six agricultural wastes. Raw material and charcoal of corn cob have the highest heating value, while raw material and charcoal of rice husk has the lowest. From combustion testing, it was found that the briquette of soybean shell and stalk charcoal has the highest flue gas temperature, while rice husks charcoal briquette had the lowest. Combustion of cord cob charcoal briquette produced less of ash residue than others, while combustion of rice husk charcoal produces the most ash.